Oral Answers to Questions

DEFENCE

The Secretary of State was asked—

Defence Capabilities

Laurence Robertson: If he will make a statement on the future of defence equipment orders from UK companies.

Adam Ingram: United Kingdom companies make a huge contribution to the nation's defence capabilities. As we made clear in our defence industrial policy, we consider it very important to sustain a successful defence industry, and we expect UK companies to continue to supply a very high proportion of our defence equipment needs.

Laurence Robertson: I thank the Minister. When does he expect the Government to make a decision on the second tranche of Eurofighter, which is important to companies such as Smiths Aerospace and Ultra Electronics in my constituency? If the order goes ahead, how will the Minister ensure that British companies receive timely payment for their work? They often have to wait an inordinate time to receive money for their work.

Adam Ingram: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's assessment of the importance of the programme not only to British industry but to the RAF and the armed forces overall. On the tranche 2 contract, negotiations between the partner nations, in respect of national industries, are at an advanced stage. In parallel, the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency, or NETMA, is negotiating, on behalf of the four nations, the contract terms and conditions with Eurofighter GmbH. We recognise that the continuity of manufacturing is important, and significant funding has already been committed to avoid a disruptive gap between tranche 1 and tranche 2. As I said, Typhoon is a hugely important investment, and it is important for all concerned to get the contract right before it is placed.

John Mann: Why are we alone among European Union countries in the way in which we define military uniforms? That has resulted in British soldiers having to wear Chinese garments instead of British ones.

Adam Ingram: My hon. Friend has got it wrong. The recent cut and sew contract was subject to competitive tender, and a UK company succeeded in winning the contract. All the contractors had a range of options in respect of where they could place certain parts of the contract relating to downstream supply; they all had options outside the UK. It was therefore wrong of my hon. Friend to pose his question as he did.

Michael Jack: Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) and following the Secretary of State's successful conclusion of discussions with BAE Systems about the price of tranche 2 of Eurofighter, and indeed the financial implications for tranche 1, has the Minister seen press reports suggesting that an announcement could be made as early as 22 November? If that is not the case, will he say so in terms, or will he say when the matter will be resolved?

Adam Ingram: I have seen the press reports, and although I could comment on them, I gave the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) an extensive answer. The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) has been active in this field, and he will know that he must wait for the contracts to be fully completed. It is important to get those negotiations right, and there will be an announcement when they have been completed.

David Drew: My right hon. Friend will be aware that defence procurement projects seem to involve bigger and bigger combinations of companies. Mawdsley's, in my constituency, a subcontractor that makes gen sets, is in real danger of going under because its parent company, which put together the bid, may fail to secure it. Will my right hon. Friend look at what is happening to British companies to ensure that each company is considered on its merits and that we keep as many in business as possible?

Adam Ingram: The answer is yes. The whole purpose and underlying principle of defence industrial policy is to get that balance right, to ensure that there is proper encouragement for the UK industrial base and to ensure that companies are well placed to take the opportunities that arise in defence procurement. I am sure that my hon. Friend recognises, however, that we have to set against that quality and value for money, and competition certainly assists us in that; but the overall principle that he mentions is enshrined in our policy.

Aircraft Carriers

Linda Gilroy: If he will make a statement on the progress of the CVF programme to design and build two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy.

Adam Ingram: The future aircraft carrier programme remains in the assessment phase and continues in line with the statement made to the House on 19 July. The programme is making good progress. The assessment phase is about de-risking the various issues involved. The design is well advanced and the partners are working closely together to deliver what undoubtedly will be a major uplift in capabilities. It remains our intention to take the main investment decision for the demonstration and manufacture phases in 2005.

Linda Gilroy: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. All the major dockyards will be aware of the important role that the future aircraft carrier will play in our capabilities. He will be aware of the important role played by Devonport in introducing competition to procurement and of the undertaking that the major warship refit programme will be subject to full competition from 2005. Will he assure the people of Devonport that that undertaking in respect of competition will not be affected by capacity issues at the sites where the future aircraft carrier is likely to be built or assembled?

Adam Ingram: My hon. Friend asks a good and interesting question. In my initial response, I indicated that competition delivers well for us, sharpening both quality and value delivery, and I cannot envisage us departing from that underlying approach. At the same time, of course, we have to ensure that we retain capability both in ship repair and refit, and in build capacity.

Julian Lewis: Who will defend the fleet from aerial attack during the very long gap between the withdrawal of the Sea Harrier and the advent of the new carriers and the joint strike fighter?

Adam Ingram: I thought that the hon. Gentleman had moved on to new territory, but he is still talking about the Sea Harrier. We have explained repeatedly, but I shall try again to inform the hon. Gentleman. Subjecting the Sea Harrier to a significant upgrade would have come at a cost. I assume that the hon. Gentleman is making a new spending commitment on behalf of the Opposition Front Bench team, although I do not know what their view is: they have said that they will seek to retain the regiments, but I do not know whether they will reinstate the Sea Harrier. Another aspect of the problem was that there was no certainty that the technical upgrade was possible, or that it could be delivered within the time frame. We have explained that the protection of the fleet will be maintained by the weapons systems on board the new ships.

Rachel Squire: What commitment will my right hon. Friend give the work force at Rosyth that the dockyard will be awarded a major part of the construction and systems fitting on the future aircraft carrier, as a yard that stands out across the UK for delivering on cost, on time and to the highest standards?

Adam Ingram: I would like to be able to announce today precisely what is to happen. I have described the process in which we are involved, which is now in the assessment phase; certain aspects still have to be worked through, although the design is now reaching maturity. Once all that has been finally assessed, apportionment of the various elements of the build will take place. My hon. Friend will therefore have to wait for an answer to her question.

Gerald Howarth: Surely the appointment of a physical integrator to manage not the project but the contract for the aircraft carrier project will only add a needless extra tier of bureaucracy, increase the cost and further delay that vital programme. Does the right hon. Gentleman still stand by the in-service date of 2012, or will the project go the same way as the Eurofighter Typhoon and the future rapid effects system battlefield vehicle: seven years of hard labour—escalating costs to the left of them, delays to the right of them?

Adam Ingram: Had previous Administrations employed the concept of a physical integrator in some of those previous procurement streams, we might not have experienced the cost overruns and delays that we did. The physical integrator will work with all the potential shipyards, manufacturing facilities and allied participants to draw up a cost-effective strategy covering the manufacturing element of the programme. That part of the process will examine the core requirements: innovation, prioritisation of design activities, block integration and management of the shipbuild strategy. That seems to me to be a sensible approach to ensure that we stay on programme. Finally, yes, we are committed to reach the in-service date as previously announced.

Neil Turner: The carrier vessel future programme is vital to our defence and to our shipbuilding industry. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that as much of the design and shipbuilding as possible is given to yards in this country, especially Barrow in the north-west, to ensure that we retain skills within the UK?

Adam Ingram: I have nothing further to add to what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire). All of this is being assessed. Those who offer the best solutions, the best innovative skills and are best placed to make a contribution and ensure that we keep on programme will, I am sure, be considered sympathetically in the placing and formulation of the final contract—there is everything to play for.

Iraq

Bob Spink: How many personnel are serving in Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: Currently, about 8,100 United Kingdom armed forces personnel are deployed in Iraq.

Bob Spink: The Prime Minister said last week that the Black Watch would be back by Christmas, but today we hear that it has no exit date. May we have clarification on that? Are there additional plans for the further redeployment of British troops outside the Multi-National Division (South-East) before the January elections in Iraq?

Geoff Hoon: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that the Black Watch would be home by Christmas, and I repeated that in my statement last Thursday. He went on to say that, for operational reasons, it would not be sensible to discuss a precise date, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that. I repeat the point that I made last Thursday: there are no plans to increase the numbers of British forces deployed outside MND (S-E).

Stephen McCabe: How many of our personnel in Iraq does my right hon. Friend estimate are buoyed up by the constant attacks on British policy? Can a modern army win a war, particularly a terrorist war, if its mission is constantly undermined by attacks from its own Parliament and in its own press? Is not that the real question that some people on the home front should be asking themselves?

Geoff Hoon: A balance must be struck between the needs of free speech in a democracy—we need to communicate information, particularly in the House—and the operational requirements to which I have just referred. It is a balance that is sometimes extremely difficult to strike. Understandably, right hon. and hon. Members want as much information as they can get, but it is my responsibility to ensure that I do not make information available that would in any way compromise the operational effectiveness of our armed forces.

Paul Keetch: In his interview on the "Today" programme the Chief of the Defence Staff seemed to intimate that if operations in Falluja were not concluded by Christmas the Black Watch might be replaced by British troops in that area. If so, is that covered by the agreement approved by the Cabinet last week, or would that require a fresh request from the United States?

Geoff Hoon: I listened to that extremely good interview very carefully. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman is right in suggesting that any such intimation was given. In response to a hypothetical question, the Chief of the Defence Staff understandably was not prepared absolutely to guarantee that those forces would not be replaced in position, but I thought that he came as near as anyone could in the circumstances to saying that that was not very likely.

Geraint Davies: The cold-blooded murder of 49 Iraqi armed trainees yesterday by al-Qaeda underlines the fact that this is a fight between murderous terrorists and those Iraqis who want peace and democracy. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that sufficient forces are in place in the run-up to January for democracy to prevail, as he did in Afghanistan? Will he ask the media to reflect on the fact that their constant carping up to January will undermine investment and undermine democracy, and play into the hands of the terrorists?

Geoff Hoon: I condemn absolutely those appalling attacks. There is a struggle going on in Iraq between those who are trying to rebuild the country, such as the brave men who died in yesterday's appalling attack, and those who appear to have no ambition other than to reduce Iraq to a state of terrifying anarchy. It is important that we continue to support those who are trying to rebuild and reconstruct their country.

Derek Conway: The Secretary of State will understand why many people believe that the Black Watch deployment is really for political rather than operational purposes. Will he tell those who gave him the benefit of the doubt whether the operational purposes result from the fact that he underestimated the effectiveness of the enemy or overestimated the effectiveness of the friendly forces?

Geoff Hoon: The operational reason is that both Iraqi forces and coalition forces are undertaking extra tasks, which have been designed to deal with the threat from the kind of terrorists who appear to have been behind the recent appalling attack. It is right that other members of the coalition should assist the Iraqis and the United States in carrying out those extra responsibilities, so the decision was taken for entirely operational reasons.

John Grogan: Does my right hon. Friend agree with Senator John Kerry, who says that the way forward in Iraq is to convene a summit of the world's major powers, key nations in the regions and key Arab and Muslim nations?

Geoff Hoon: The allies engaged in Iraq have regular discussions. About a week ago, I addressed such a meeting, where representatives of coalition countries were brought together to discuss the latest developments, and I am sure that that process will continue.

Peter Tapsell: In the memorial week of the charge of the Light Brigade, is it not clear that by invading Iraq the Secretary of State has shown himself to be as stupid as Lord Lucan?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should know better, and he should know that temperate language is called for.

Peter Tapsell: I withdraw "stupid" and insert—

Mr. Speaker: Order—just withdrawing the word is fine.

Geoff Hoon: I know that the Conservative party revels in glorious failure, and long may it continue.

Harry Barnes: Would it not make more sense to have American troops in Iraq under British control rather than British troops under American control? Have we not made a better fist of things than the Americans, whose activities have been disastrous?

Geoff Hoon: From time to time in Iraq, British troops have been under American control and American troops have been under British control. That is in the nature of coalition operations.

Nicholas Soames: May I press the Secretary of State? What are his plans if the task currently being undertaken by the Black Watch runs beyond Christmas? Would he deploy the ingoing divisional reserve to the north and, if so, what plans would he be likely to have to reinforce British troops in the south of Iraq?

Geoff Hoon: We have always made it clear—I have said this on a number of occasions in the House—that we keep the number of troops in Iraq under constant review. The number of troops depends entirely on the security situation on the ground and on the events that the troops must deal with. As I said on Thursday, and I repeat again today, we have no plans at the present time to increase the forces in Iraq beyond the increases that have been announced to the House previously.

Nicholas Soames: At the very time when the exceptional qualities of British troops are needed as never before, the Government appear hellbent on reducing the numbers of fighting men in the British Army. Does that not reveal the utter folly of the Government's plans to disband four infantry battalions? Does it not further explain the profound anxiety expressed by Members on both sides of the House at such an untimely and foolish proposal?

Geoff Hoon: I understand why the hon. Gentleman keeps making that political point, but he knows full well that when he was Minister for the Armed Forces in the last Conservative Government the infantry were significantly readjusted in order to invest more in those who support the infantry. The reality is that unless logisticians, engineers and intelligence personnel are in position, it is not possible to use the infantry battalions to which he belatedly claims to be so attached. Our proposal will increase the number of deployable, usable infantry battalions over and above the present position, and he should welcome it, not criticise it.

Front-line Armed Forces

David Kidney: What work he is undertaking to strengthen the support services and logistics for front-line armed forces.

Adam Ingram: We have launched a comprehensive transformation programme for defence logistics that covers everything from supply chain effectiveness to a new relationship with industry on supporting military equipment. The programme is already bringing about improvements identified as necessary from operations in Iraq and elsewhere. It will also deliver substantial efficiency savings that can be reinvested in the front line.

David Kidney: As my right hon. Friend makes ongoing changes, will he bear in mind the vital contribution to all successful campaigns that is made by logistics and timely distribution? May I thank him for his visit to RAF Stafford last month, where he saw the services that it offers? Does he recall that day and the offer made by the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency to take over the engineering wing from Strike Command? Is he yet in a position to respond to that request, because it would be a great boost to morale locally were he to agree to it?

Adam Ingram: Yes, I well remember that visit. On all such visits, one learns a lot about what happens on the ground and encounters the quality of the people first hand. I was impressed by the work that is being done in all aspects of RAF Stafford's activities in supporting the front line. I have had a good, hard look at the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency's request to take over the engineering wing that is based at Stafford and is under Strike Command. Having done so, I am minded that the engineering wing should be transferred to DSDA as part of the Defence Logistics Organisation. However, that would not exempt the engineering wing from scrutiny under the DLO business process review and the future defence supply chain initiatives. Of course, we would consult on the proposal in the usual way. I am coming to the conclusion that my hon. Friend seeks and hope to be able to give him a thorough explanation very soon.

James Gray: I am sure that the Minister will join me in paying tribute to the magnificent contribution made in my constituency to operations in Iraq by 23rd Air Defence Regiment in Colerne, by 9th Regiment the Royal Logistics Corps in Hullavington, and by the Hercules aircraft at RAF Lyneham. However, would he care to comment on why he is now apparently considering the closure of Colerne and Hullavington, and why he recently announced the closure of RAF Lyneham, having apparently entered into discussions—as I hear from Mrs. Bucknell, a councillor in my constituency—with none other than Virgin Airways about refuelling in Lyneham after he sells it off?

Adam Ingram: Of course I share the warm feelings towards all those who have provided support to our front line, whether in Iraq or anywhere else. They do a magnificent job. However, the underlying logic of the hon. Gentleman's comments is that nothing should change, but things do change in successive decades. Previous Conservative Administrations have taken through fundamental transformations of the armed forces. We are considering one specific area—the DLO, which plays a very big part in the overall delivery of what we do. It is right to do so. Out of that will come conclusions that may not suit the hon. Gentleman but will be for the overall benefit of the armed forces.

John Smith: Will my right hon. Friend look again at his preferred option, announced on 16 September, to renationalise the air depth support of almost the entire front line fleet of RAF fast jets, on the grounds that it runs counter to the recommendations of his own strategic defence review and makes no military or economic sense whatsoever?

Adam Ingram: I have paid tribute to my hon. Friend before for his sterling hard work on behalf of the Defence Aviation Repair Agency at St. Athan, but he has got it wrong on this occasion. The situation is not as he describes it. The roll forward to Marham of the Tornado certainly has an adverse impact on DARA St. Athan, but the roll back of the rotary wing to Fleetlands retains it within the DARA civilian structure, albeit with a significant component of military personnel working alongside it. I hope that my hon. Friend understands that even had there been a roll back of the work to DARA St. Athan many—indeed, probably as many—of the civilian posts would have gone because of the need to retain that engineering and technical capability within the RAF.

Keith Simpson: The whole House understands the importance of support services and logistics to our armed forces, particularly in Iraq. Last month, the Public Accounts Committee published its report on the Ministry of Defence and Operation Telic. Paragraph 10 of its conclusions and recommendations states:
	"The repeated identification of important logistics lessons such as the absence of an adequate consignment tracking system suggests fundamental shortcomings in the Department's ability to learn and act upon lessons from previous experiences."
	Given that we are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Crimean war, as the House already knows, what hope is there that the Ministry of Defence will learn any lessons about logistics?

Adam Ingram: I really do not think that the hon. Gentleman fully understands the subject. If he were to examine the Defence Logistics Organisation transformation programme—I offer him the opportunity to come along to be briefed on all that we want to do—he would be aware that we have tried to put together a complex organisation, which perhaps should have happened before under the original DLO. There were stresses and strains surrounding aspects of equipment delivery, but many of the problems identified have been addressed. That applies wholly to the tracking system, which is absolutely crucial for the delivery of items to the front line. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that such hiccups did not occur in the past, he does not live in the real world.

Falklands War

Lindsay Hoyle: What steps his Department is taking to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Falklands conflict; and if he will make a statement.

Ivor Caplin: Preliminary discussions about commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Falklands conflict have taken place with the South Atlantic Medal Association, known as SAMA 82. When those ideas have been developed further and agreed with the veterans, I will make an appropriate announcement to the House.

Lindsay Hoyle: I welcome my hon. Friend's answer. Will he ensure that there will be a tri-service approach to ensure that everyone will have the opportunity to go back to the Falklands? It will be the 25th anniversary of the conflict, so we must ensure that the families of those who died will be able to visit the Falklands. We must act sufficiently early because of the logistics of putting such a project together, and I look forward to my hon. Friend taking those people out there.

Ivor Caplin: I have written to the chairman of the South Atlantic Medal Association to ask about those issues. I hope that my hon. Friend and the House are aware of the significant amount of work that the Ministry of Defence is undertaking on events in 2005. We will stage commemorations for VE and VJ day, veterans' awareness week and a national day of celebration to commemorate the end of world war two on Sunday 10 July. Plans have recently been confirmed for the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar.

Douglas Hogg: Will the hon. Gentleman contrast the support that was given for the deployment of British troops to recover the Falkland Islands with the lack of support felt in this country for the deployment in Iraq? Surely the difference is this—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are talking about an anniversary. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's question is far too wide of that.

John Wilkinson: Will the Government take the opportunity of the commemoration of the campaign to recapture the Falkland Islands from a brutal dictatorship to reflect on the crucial role played by the Fleet Air Arm in achieving that objective? Surely the best thing that we could do to honour those who laid down their lives would be to ensure that naval aviation does not become a second-class aspect of our future defence.

Ivor Caplin: The hon. Gentleman knows that there will be a joint strike force in the future. I certainly pay tribute to those who fought in 1982 to recover the Falkland Islands.

Nigel Evans: I know that we live in an era of barmy political correctness and that there might be a temptation to play down the significance of the 25th anniversary to avoid stepping on the toes, or offending the sensitivities, of another country, but will the Minister assure me that that will not happen and that we will assist veterans who wish to visit the islands during the celebrations? Will Ministers play an active role in the celebrations?

Ivor Caplin: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State visited the Falkland Islands on the 20th anniversary. I assure the House that the 25th anniversary will be taken seriously—the Government will certainly uphold that commitment, which was made to the veterans of the South Atlantic Medal Association.

Army Establishment

Patrick Mercer: If he will make a statement on manning levels in the Army.

Adam Ingram: As at 1 September 2004, whole Army trained strength stood at 104,090, including 3,400 Gurkhas and 830 full-time reserve service personnel. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made clear in July when he announced plans to modernise the force structure, organisation and capabilities of the armed forces to meet the challenges of the 21st century, we envisage a future Army of around 102,000. That is, however, dependent on achieving full normalisation in Northern Ireland. In the meantime, therefore, the strength of the Army will remain broadly as it is today.

Patrick Mercer: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. Tomorrow, the 22nd Cheshire Regiment hands over in Basra after an outstanding, difficult and well-fought tour. I am sure that the Minister will be aware that it started that tour 90 men under strength. Is he aware of what sort of problem that gives the commanding officer and company commanders, and how frightening and dangerous that is for soldiers on the ground? Can he confirm absolutely that the recruiting strategy is right and, more to the point, that scrapping of infantry regiments is the correct step?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman raises a number of points. We recognise the issues in relation to under-strength regiments, which is why the transformation and rebrigading of the Army is essential, to try to ensure that they have adequate strength as they move into a warfighting or peacekeeping mode, and that they have all the logisticians—engineers, signallers and all the key enablers—which they do not have at present, or for which they require augmentation from elsewhere. That is part of the underlying approach of this transformation, which is about making available more capable battalions for deployment. I ask the hon. Gentleman to recognise that. I pay tribute to the work done by the Cheshires and all the regiments that have been based in Iraq over the past year and some months. To their credit, they have carried on delivering the objectives of the coalition—to bring about stability in Iraq and to give Iraq back to the Iraqis.

Chris McCafferty: When will my right hon. Friend be in a position to answer my written question of last Wednesday on the comparative strengths of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, 3 Para and the Prince of Wales's Royal Regiment? Is he aware that the Duke of Wellington's Regiment is eight over strength, comparing extremely favourably with the Royals, which is 122 under strength, and 3 Para, which is 58 under strength? Does he recognise the premier position—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members have only one supplementary question. The hon. Lady can leave it at that, and the Minister can reply.

Adam Ingram: I shall try to reply. I do not know when I will be able to answer the question that my hon. Friend asks. The information may be in the process of being delivered to me for answer now. I hope that her points will be dealt with in that answer, and that that will assist her in further argumentation on behalf of her local regiment.

Annabelle Ewing: The Prime Minister said last week that the Black Watch and the redeployment to northern Iraq were crucial to the US army effort. My constituents in Perth, where the Black Watch has its regimental headquarters, want to know why the Black Watch is crucial to the US army but not as important to this Government, who are planning, when it returns home, to amalgamate it out of existence?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Lady has it wholly wrong. If she had heard the earlier answer about why the transformation and rebrigading of resources is under way, she would know that I speak to many serving soldiers—young soldiers and young officers—who are looking very much to the future. I heard one of her colleagues saying on television yesterday that the role of the Scottish regiments under an independent Scotland would be to serve peacekeeping purposes. Whom does she think would create the peace? Someone must create that environment. That is what our troops do—they are trained to war-fight and to peace-keep. Under an independent Scotland, they would be in the second league.

Gordon Prentice: How many regiments would be seriously undermanned were it not for the contribution of the Fijians?

Adam Ingram: A number. I pay tribute to the Commonwealth servicemen and women who serve alongside our personnel. They make a sizeable and valuable contribution, they are the equal of our citizens, and they are trained to the same high standards.

Bob Russell: The Government are planning to restructure the Army into regional regiments—one assumes that that is also to help manning, and that there will be two or three battalions per regional regiment. When a regional regiment is already established, with a proven record of recruitment for two battalions, will the Government consider providing a third battalion?

Adam Ingram: Half of the Army are already in the structure that has been considered and will soon be proposed to the Army Board and then to Ministers. All the lessons that have been learned about the larger regiments have, I think, been of great benefit. A range of factors accrue from that, some of which I touched on earlier, but I note the hon. Gentleman's interest. I suppose he is talking about a particular regiment, which he did not mention, so I do not think that I should either.

Royal Irish Regiment

David Burnside: Whether, in the event of security normalisation in Northern Ireland, the three home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment will be in addition to garrison strength in the Province.

Adam Ingram: The Government have not come to a final conclusion about the future of the three home service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment, or about the composition of the long-term garrison in Northern Ireland.

David Burnside: That is exactly the worrying answer that I expected from the Minister. He should be aware that since Her Majesty's Government assumed internal security powers from the Government and Parliament of Northern Ireland in March 1972, at no time has there not been a locally recruited, armed back-up to the civil power—first, it was the Ulster Defence Regiment, which was succeeded by the home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment. His answer is very worrying. I wish that he would give the House the commitment that, in peace, to be prepared to stop a terrorist threat we must continue to have the three locally recruited home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment.

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman's question includes the words
	"in the event of security normalisation in Northern Ireland".
	I assume that he is in favour of normalisation. Normalisation means a completely different type of defence presence in Northern Ireland, but no decisions have been taken on what that will be, the process or the time scale. All that is subject to the intense discussions to which I assume he is party, but I had hoped that he wanted a normalised Northern Ireland, not the Northern Ireland that we have had for the past 30 years.

Andrew MacKinlay: In the event of normalisation, will there be scope for the full-time home service battalion soldiers to serve overseas?

Adam Ingram: The answer is yes. Those soldiers can join the Regular Army. I recently visited the Royal Irish, who are based at Fort George in Inverness. It was interesting that they were very keen to be posted either to Iraq or to Afghanistan. They are keen to deliver the capability that they have. I think that that works across the whole of the British Army. People want to serve where we have a mission that is delivering on all the aspects that the House wants to see, including a stable and peaceful Iraq. In terms of those who wish to serve in the Regular Army, if they have other commitments, they can of course transfer to the regulars.

Headquarters Land Command

Robert Key: What progress has been made on the study to relocate HQ Land Command from Wilton.

Ivor Caplin: Work to examine the scope for rationalisation and co-location of Headquarters Land Command and the Headquarters Adjutant General is in its early stages. A number of potential co-location sites are being assessed and, until that work is complete, I cannot say what the preferred site option will be.

Robert Key: The Army and the civilian work force who support them in my constituency are an integral part of our community; they are always welcome and we want them to stay. Therefore, will the Minister, when he considers the various options for relocation, bear it in mind that the most obvious location, which would be warmly welcomed by everyone to whom I have spoken in the area, is the new development at Solstice park, which would be tailor-made for the major garrison headquarters of the British Army? He should not be blown off course by anyone from the Treasury, or anyone else, but listen to what local people as well as what the military, I believe, want.

Ivor Caplin: The hon. Gentleman has made an impassioned plea for a conclusion, but it will be mid next year before we come to a short list of possible sites. However, I am conscious that that work is likely to cause some anxiety, particularly among civilian staff. For that reason, we will undertake to keep them informed at all stages.

Paul Flynn: Is the Minister concerned by the threats made this weekend by farmers in the Salisbury plain and Wilton area to withdraw the use of their land from the military? Does he realise that the Ministry of Defence pays £2 million a year for the occasional use of farming land, and allows the rent of military land on very favourable terms to farmers in Salisbury? What can we do to protect our Army, and the continuation of its services, from the grasping demands of unpatriotic farmers?

Ivor Caplin: My hon. Friend will be aware that training on private land is, of course, a matter for private landowners, and we are grateful for the long-standing relationship that we have with farmers and landowners in the Salisbury area. I do not think that the situation is quite as one newspaper yesterday made it out to be.

Iraq

David Taylor: If he will make a statement on the security situation in Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: The security situation in certain parts of Iraq remains difficult. We continue to work with the Iraqi Interim Government to develop the capacity of the Iraqi security forces, and to ensure that the majority of the population is able to live in a comparatively secure environment.

David Taylor: Following the appalling murders of Ken Bigley and other kidnapped foreign hostages and the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of ordinary Iraqis, such as the 50 national guardsmen found near Baquba at the weekend, can the Secretary of State say what assistance is being given to the Iraqi security services? What does he say to those who opposed allied military intervention in March of last year, not least because the honourable goal of getting rid of a savage tyrant far too often leads to continuing chaos, bloody terrorism and incipient civil war?

Geoff Hoon: I will make it clear to those who, from their own point of view, felt unable to support the military conflict that it is nevertheless important today that everyone, whatever their views at the time of the conflict, supports the efforts being made by the international community and multinational forces, and specifically those efforts to assist in the training of the Iraqi security forces.
	There are today some 90,000 trained police officers in Iraq, 39,000 members of the national guard, a new Iraqi army of around 9,000—rising soon, we hope, to 27,000—and 16,000 border guards, as well as a number of other security organisations. I am often asked what the Government's exit strategy is; that is the Government's exit strategy, as I made clear last week. It is training Iraqi security forces to take on the responsibility, rightly, for the security of their own country.

Crispin Blunt: The Secretary of State is talking about an exit strategy for the current situation, but he will be only too aware that coming down the road after the elections—if they are successfully concluded—is the issue of the resolution of the Kurdish question in Iraq. Can he reassure the House that the Ministry of Defence is engaging in contingency planning in the event that the Kurdish question results in civil war in Iraq?

Geoff Hoon: I simply do not accept that to be an issue. I have met, in very recent times, the Vice-President, who is Kurdish, and the deputy Defence Minister, who is also Kurdish. Both of them are absolutely committed to the idea of a united Iraq that is restored to the international community and where all its people can live in freedom and security.

David Winnick: Recognising that the terrorists certainly do not want free and democratic elections to take place in January—hence their activities and indiscriminate slaughter of Iraqi people—does my right hon. Friend agree that it is the responsibility of the House to monitor what is happening there and to review the situation at every opportunity? That is the job of Members of Parliament, and that is what the electorate expect from us.

Geoff Hoon: I entirely accept that. My hon. Friend has been forthright in his condemnation of the regime of Saddam Hussein over many years, as well as giving great support to British forces engaged in the overthrow of that tyrant. I certainly agree with him that it is important that we debate those issues.

Army Training

Michael Jabez Foster: If he will make a statement on procedures for training of Army recruits.

Ivor Caplin: Training of recruits within the Army is conducted by the Army Training and Recruiting Agency, in conjunction with other service training agencies. ATRA is organised into 10 operating divisions. Most of those divisions comprise a number of specialist schools devoted to a specific area of training.
	Phase 1 training lasts for 12 weeks and follows a syllabus called "Common Military Syllabus (Recruits)". The course prepares recruits for Army life and for their professional or trade training, known as phase 2 training.

Michael Jabez Foster: I thank my hon. Friend for that detailed reply. However, in the light of the conviction of Leslie Skinner last week for offences carried out at Deepcut—a man who had already been the subject of a court martial in Northern Ireland—is it not time that the Army protected young soldiers from such people and, in particular, waived Crown immunity from the criminal records procedures?

Ivor Caplin: I cannot comment on my hon. Friend's final point, but I shall examine what he said. The decision to post Leslie Skinner to Deepcut was taken on 29 January 1997. It was a bad decision. I assure the House that such a decision would not be taken today by the Army or any other part of the armed forces.

Nicholas Soames: How can the Minister explain a system to the House of Commons that allows Territorial Army soldiers to deploy to a theatre of war without adequate weapons training? Is it not wholly unacceptable and likely to be profoundly dangerous? What steps is he taking to ensure that that is urgently rectified and that such astonishing neglect of duty cannot happen again? Which high official or senior serviceman, regardless of rank, is to be held to account for such a deplorable and unforgivable failure?

Ivor Caplin: First, I pay tribute to all our reserve forces, wherever they are serving. They have done a fantastic job. We owe a debt of gratitude to their families and employers. The hon. Gentleman is well aware that all mobilised reserves undergo pre-deployment training. That training, which is constantly under review, is carried out in accordance with extant directives issued by the chain of command. We will maintain that situation and continue to look at those issues.

Joan Humble: While recognising that there is much good training in the Army, will my hon. Friend look at what happens when, sadly, the training goes wrong—not just for new recruits, but for recruits such as my constituent Derek McGregor, who enjoyed three or four years in the Army before, sadly, dying in Army barracks? Will he consider the pleas of their parents and have a proper investigation into what happens when the training goes so badly wrong?

Ivor Caplin: My hon. Friend will be aware of the Government's position on inquiries, which was set out in the House by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State on 24 May. Since then, however, we have signed the memorandum of understanding with the adult learning inspectorate on 7 July. The regime is tough. It inspects our recruiting and training objectives, and all its reports will be published.

Royal Marines

David Heath: What sporting and fitness facilities are available to 45 Commando Royal Marines at Arbroath.

Ivor Caplin: Given 45 Commando's military need for high fitness and role-related skills, there are a number of facilities at RM Condor in Arbroath, including a gymnasium and fitness suite, a trim-track, a cross-country course, an artificial ski slope for training for cold weather operations, and a climbing wall and other sports facilities.

David Heath: Over the past year, it has been my privilege, through the armed forces parliamentary scheme, to spend time with the Royal Marines, and it only confirmed my belief in the professionalism of their service. The bad news for the Government, however, is that people sitting in snow holes often grumble. It was the unanimous view of the lads we met from 45 Commando that the fitness training facilities were not up to the standard that they needed to maintain the maximum level of fitness, which we expect of them in doing the difficult work that they do. I pass that on to the Minister and hope that he will look into it.

Ivor Caplin: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has been to the base twice. He is particularly pleased that the hon. Gentleman managed to go into a snow hole, because I think he spent a night in one in Norway.

Service Deployments

Simon Hughes: How many (a) Army, (b) Royal Navy and (c) RAF personnel are stationed outside the UK; and what percentage this is of the total strength in each case.

Geoff Hoon: Some 26,000 Army personnel, 2,000 RAF personnel and 400 Royal Navy personnel are permanently stationed outside the United Kingdom. These figures equate to approximately 23 per cent., 3 per cent. and 1 per cent. of the total strength of the individual services respectively.

Simon Hughes: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. I understand that the official tri-service publication statistics—TSP 6—have not been collected and published for two years, because they were believed to be inaccurate and thus unreliable. Can the Secretary of State tell the House whether we shall have statistics soon on personnel deployment at home and abroad, so that the public can take part in the debate about how strong our armed services should be? Linked to the question about training two questions ago, can the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that the armed services will see the same duty of care to their employees wherever they are in service, whether they are stationed in this country or abroad?

Geoff Hoon: The hon. Gentleman is right. In terms of duty of care, the armed forces publish a wealth of statistics, but he is right—that particular statistical collection has not been made, simply due to concern that the previous basis for the collection of the figures was not sufficiently robust. I assure him that efforts are being made to ensure the accuracy of those statistics before they are published in future.

Mark Francois: Among those Army personnel abroad are obviously members of the Black Watch. They are already in harm's way and are about to go further into it. I am sure that everyone in the House wishes them the best of luck with the mission that lies ahead of them, but would not it be appropriate for the Secretary of State to give them a signal today that when they come back from that mission they will not be, in effect, dismantled?

Geoff Hoon: The statistics actually referred to those permanently employed abroad. I emphasised that the Black Watch is there for a mission of limited duration and will be returning to the United Kingdom in time for Christmas. We are continuing to debate in the House the reorganisation of our infantry, and I assure the House—as I assure the hon. Gentleman, who takes a keen interest in these matters—that there will be every opportunity for members of the Black Watch, on their return to the UK, to maintain the traditions of that regiment and its fine history. There is no reason at all why, in the proposed reorganisation, all those historic regiments should not maintain such a connection with their distinguished past.

Iraq

Frank Roy: If he will reintroduce a free parcel delivery service to the armed forces serving in Iraq in time for Christmas.

Adam Ingram: There are no plans to reintroduce a free postal packet service to the armed forces serving in Iraq for Christmas. However, a number of initiatives are in place to ensure that all service personnel deployed on operations are able to celebrate Christmas within the constraints imposed by active service.

Frank Roy: Will the Minister keep an open mind on that subject? I am sure that he will recognise how vital it is for troops' morale to receive a free service for parcels from their loved ones at home.

Adam Ingram: We understand all the issues relating to the welfare of our troops when they are away from home, whether they are in Iraq or anywhere else, but it is worth while putting the request in context. Parcels and post leaving these shores are delivered free to those areas; families have to pay a mainland first-class postage rate for packages of up to 2 kg, so there is a free element. There are of course many other aspects of the welfare package to allow service personnel and their families to communicate to the highest degree. Personnel are provided with 20 minutes of free phone calls each week, as well as access to electronic blueys, e-mail and the internet. Sometimes, I think that such direct forms of communication are of much more benefit to those who want to talk to their loved ones.

Henry Bellingham: Does the Minister agree that members of the Territorial Army do not merely want free parcels, they want their jobs back when they have served in Iraq? Does he agree that it is most unfortunate that 25 members of the TA have had to go to industrial tribunals—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is well beyond the scope of the question.

Desmond Swayne: What NATO's role is in Iraq.

John Bercow: If he will make a statement on NATO's role in Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: NATO's role in Iraq is to provide assistance to the Iraqi Interim Government with the training of their security forces. The alliance aims to assist in strengthening the internal security of Iraq in order to create fully functioning and self-sustaining Iraqi security structures responsible to a democratically formed Iraqi Government.

Desmond Swayne: Given the enormous effort that has been put into recruiting members of the new Iraqi army in Multi-National Division (South-East), is the Secretary of State confident, after recent events, that those trainees are receiving an appropriate level of security?

Geoff Hoon: I have already condemned those appalling events. We take very seriously the matter of force protection. We are seeing increasing responsibility passing, rightly, to the Iraqi security forces. That process must go on as we continue to train Iraqi security forces, but that does not mean any lessening in our concern for their security.

John Bercow: Given that NATO has acknowledged that until recently Afghanistan was its top priority and that considerable stabilisation has been achieved there, culminating in the successful conduct of elections, what particular lessons does the right hon. Gentleman think NATO could draw from that experience for helpful application in the run-up to the elections in Iraq?

Geoff Hoon: We had a recent informal meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Romania where that precise comparison was drawn. The lesson that we have learned from Afghanistan is that not only is it necessary to train individual soldiers in the ability to carry and use weapons, but it is crucial that we should train their leaders. I believe that NATO has a particular role in ensuring that the leadership is properly trained, because without that leadership we cannot pass to the Iraqi security forces the responsibility for their own country.

Opposition Day
	 — 
	[20th Allotted Day]

University Admissions Policy

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business. I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Tim Collins: I beg to move,
	That this House believes that universities should be solely and wholly in charge of their own admissions policies, without regard to any externally imposed quotas, targets or benchmarks; affirms that access to higher education should be determined on the basis of academic merit, not social, economic or geographical background; welcomes and supports the efforts of universities to seek out, find and encourage talent in all parts of society, endeavours which long pre-date Government intervention and which are threatened, not encouraged, by it; recognises that attempts to force universities to use politically-determined criteria threaten academic excellence and independence alike; notes that the Government's policies on these issues have sparked deep-seated anger and resentment among universities, whose leaders have in consequence warned Ministers not to interfere with university admissions policy and even openly contemplated self-privatisation as a means of escape; regrets the appointment of a University Access Regulator who has declared himself to be of the view that the principal issue facing higher education is class; and urges the immediate abolition of the Office for Fair Access and the removal of state interference from issues which lie at the heart of university independence, freedom and standards.
	The debate is about excellence, independence and freedom. All are essential prerequisites for the standing of the UK's world-class universities, all are the fundamental bulwarks of achievement in both research and teaching, and all are profoundly under threat from the Government's misguided policies. As ever, the Government try to have it both ways. They try to send different messages to different audiences. The Minister is all reassurance, all charm, as he naturally would be inclined to be, when he is speaking to an audience of academics. When he is speaking to an audience of his Back Benchers, he is breathing fire, he is determined to change things, and he will not put up with what universities are doing.
	A classic symbol of the confusion, whether deliberate or unintended, at the heart of the Government's policies appears on the Order Paper, in the amendment to which the Minister will speak. The Government accept the first few words of the Opposition motion. In particular they accept
	"that universities should be solely and wholly in charge of their own admissions policies".
	Excellent. Admirable. What could be better than that? But unfortunately they delete the next words, which read
	"without regard to any externally imposed quotas, targets or benchmarks".
	It is difficult to see how universities could be in charge of their admissions policies if they were to have regard to
	"externally imposed quotas, targets or benchmarks".
	Perhaps it is the words "quotas, targets or benchmarks" to which the Government object, but later in their amendment, referring to statistics that have recently been published, they say they abhor
	"the recent misinterpretation of those indicators as targets or quotas".
	So it is not the word "target" that they object to, or the word "quota". Perhaps it is the word "benchmark" that they object to, except that the Minister is on record as saying:
	"Universities will not be penalised for failing to meet their benchmarks",
	so it is difficult to see why those words are deleted from the Opposition motion unless, as we all suspect, the Government want universities to be obliged to have regard to externally imposed targets, quotas and benchmarks.
	That is at the heart of the debate today—whether our universities will improve their quality, their international reputation, their ability to research and their ability to attract the best minds not only nationally but internationally, if they are subject to external interference on a wholly unprecedented scale. Let us remember where all this began: in a very unfortunate speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject of a student named Laura Spence. The Chancellor chose to take the view that he, as someone who had no experience of Oxford's admissions policies, was in a better position than experienced Oxford admissions tutors to judge who should and should not be admitted to a course which was heavily oversubscribed. After announcing that he, as the person in charge of the nation's purse strings, concluded that Laura Spence should have been admitted, he failed to tell Oxford which of the exceptionally well qualified alternative candidates would have had to be ejected to make way for Miss Laura Spence.
	Throughout the process, the Labour party in government has attempted to use university admissions policies as a party political football, a means of scoring with Back-Bench Members and reassuring core activists that it remains a socialist party at heart and retains the old class war instincts.

Michael Fabricant: For the avoidance of doubt, will my hon. Friend make it clear that he supports the principle of equal opportunities for all, and that, when people are qualified to go to university, from whatever school but especially from state schools, they should have the opportunity to do that?

Tim Collins: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Conservative party has always believed in equality of opportunity, whereas the Labour party believes in equality of outcome, which is fundamentally different and bears no relationship to merit.

David Chaytor: It is extremely generous of the Opposition to allow children from state schools to go to university. Does the hon. Gentleman admit that questions about admissions to our leading research universities need further examination to guarantee the equality of opportunity that he endorsed? Does he genuinely believe that there is there no problem in the admissions policies of our leading research universities?

Tim Collins: The hon. Gentleman puts the case in a characteristically light, welcome and subtle way. Nevertheless, his comments go to the heart of the debate. I am sure that he knows that admission to our leading universities from state schools is lower now than 30 years ago. Academic selection in higher education is the unsurprising result of doing away with academic selection in secondary education.
	To the charge that a problem exists, we contend that universities do their level best to get people of all social backgrounds through their doors. I have never met a university vice-chancellor, teacher or don who wants to teach those who are more stupid than they should be. They want to teach the most able and most academically talented. They are determined to do that. However, Conservative Members believe that the state has no role in telling universities whom they should admit and whom they should not. If we followed the route of the state's dictating admission, it would lead to a profoundly unequal position whereby the least articulate, the least able to lobby their Members of Parliament and the least able to get the state to intervene on their behalf lost out the most.

Evan Harris: The hon. Gentleman is right about the Laura Spence case. He showed how foolish it was of the Chancellor to cite an individual case, especially that case, because it was unfair on the admissions staff at Oxford. I hope that he agrees that Oxford faces the problem of getting enough state students to apply in the first place. That problem is not solved by stereotypes and caricatures such as the one the Chancellor used. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that judging on A-levels alone may discriminate against students from less good educational backgrounds, and that that is why the interview process is so important at some universities?

Tim Collins: I agree almost entirely with the hon. Gentleman. As he would expect, I naturally endorse his comments on Oxford and citing a specific case. I also agree that, if universities are allowed to proceed in some freedom, they will increasingly move towards the form of selection that he suggests. He knows from his constituency experience that Oxford has invested a huge amount of effort, time and commitment in outreach programmes. Indeed, a note from Oxford that was widely circulated before the debate states that, on almost every day of the working week, some outreach activity occurs.
	The university is determined to expand bursaries, and to penetrate some of the most difficult and deprived local education authority areas to encourage students with aptitude and ability—they are certainly to be found in every part of our country, from every social and economic background—to apply. It goes out of its way to do that.
	Oxford is equally adamant, however, that it is for it to determine who goes there; it is not for Government, or for any Government appointee, to do so. The phrase "Get your tanks off our lawn" is being used. This is the fundamental difference between the two sides of the House: we believe in academic freedom, and we take it seriously.

Jonathan R Shaw: We welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said about Oxford university. What we are saying is that if universities are to impose higher fees on students, they are obliged to do exactly what he says Oxford will do. We want all universities to do it. If they do not reach out and encourage groups of people from working-class backgrounds to seek admission, they should not be allowed to charge higher fees. That is perfectly reasonable.

Tim Collins: Let me ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question. Will he name a university that does not do that?

Jonathan R Shaw: I am not going to name a university—[Interruption.] I am not going to name a university, but that is precisely the role of OFFA. That is why we are creating the post: so that we can draw comparisons between those that are engaged in good practice, working hard to reach out, and those that are not. If the hon. Gentleman does not understand that, he ought to read the briefs with which Labour Members have been provided.

Tim Collins: I think the hon. Gentleman's problem is that he has been reading those briefs rather too assiduously. He has no answer to the question "Which universities do not already do that?", because they all do. His justification for OFFA's creation seems to be that it will force universities to do what they are already doing, universally and fully. That is not compatible with the assurance given by the Secretary of State to the House and the country that OFFA would be non-bureaucratic and powerful, that it would make a difference, and that it would empower those who have previously been unable to go to university.
	The fact is that, when pressed, Labour Members cannot come up with any example of a university that is not already doing its level best. It is clear that the creation of this institution is at best bureaucratic nonsense and a waste of time, and at worst an act of political spite and vindictiveness.

Helen Jones: The hon. Gentleman accepted earlier that ability was distributed to all ranks of society. In his report, Professor Schwartz clearly states that
	"only 26 per cent. of young entrants to full-time degree courses came from skilled manual, partly skilled or unskilled family backgrounds."
	Does it not follow that if universities are trying to reach out to people from such backgrounds they are not doing very well so far, and ought to attempt to do better? That is what we are trying to encourage them to do.

Tim Collins: What the hon. Lady seems not to recognise is that most of the groups she has identified do not take five GCSEs, and do not take A-levels. They are let down by the school system. It is not for the universities to be punished and penalised for the product of decades—for this has not been happening only since 1997—of problems with the state secondary school system. No one can be expected to put everything right among 18-year-olds when it should have been sorted out when they were between 11 and 18, or indeed probably much younger—at the primary or pre-primary stage.

John McWilliam: rose—

Tim Collins: I want to make some progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman later.
	We have talked a little about what Oxford already does. It is a great pleasure to be able—as I have not been for quite some time—to cite with unqualified approbation and endorsement words uttered by my old friend and colleague, Mr. Chris Patten. He was a very distinguished chairman of the Conservative party some years ago. It must be said that since then he has not always been in line with every aspect of Conservative policy. I am delighted to note, however, that on this issue he and we are once again of one mind. In his capacity as chancellor of Oxford university—he is also chancellor of Newcastle university—he said:
	"What the government is trying to do is to press universities to make up for the inadequacies in parts of our secondary education system and what that means is they are pressing for a lowering of standards. It is as brutally simple as that."
	He is absolutely right in that characterisation, and that view is widely shared by many people in the worlds of academe.

Alan Howarth: The hon. Gentleman set up an Aunt Sally in what he had to say about academic freedom: we all believe in academic freedom. However, I wish to press him on what he means by academic merit. In the words of the motion, his party
	"affirms that access to higher education should be determined on the basis of academic merit, not social, economic or geographical background".
	Does he mean by "academic merit" simply exams passed, or does he mean academic potential? If he accepts that admissions policies should take account of academic potential, how can they then not take some account of social, economic and geographical background?

Tim Collins: I have much sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman on these issues, because he thinks creatively and independently. If that is the reason why he will not vote for our motion, he cannot therefore vote for the amendment, which says that the Government
	"agrees that admissions to higher education should always be based on merit".
	We are all agreed that admissions should be based on merit: I hope that we could all agree that it is for universities to define what "merit" means, not for politicians or politically imposed regulators.

Kevin Brennan: On that basis and to be clear about the hon. Gentleman's thinking, does he welcome the practice undertaken by some universities of admitting pupils with lower A-level standards than others, because of their academic potential?

Tim Collins: I welcome universities doing whatever they believe to be appropriate in order to recruit the best possible students for their courses. The hon. Gentleman once again makes the case that we strongly adhere to: universities are experimenting, reaching out and doing their level best already to try to obtain as wide a spectrum of talent as they possibly can. They do not need a bureaucratic and party-politically imposed regulator to force them to do so.
	The gentleman who has been appointed as the Government's director for fair access is Professor Sir Martin Harris. He is a man of enormous reputation and esteem, and greatly respected throughout the higher education sector. I entirely understand why the Government chose him to take up that remit. However, it was widely felt, not only on these Benches, but through the education world and among the wider public, that it was extremely unfortunate that he made it clear in an interview in The Times on his appointment that, first, he was happy to be described as
	"resolutely old Labour",
	and secondly—and much more seriously—that the fundamental issue facing higher education was class. He said that
	"class underlies almost all the inequalities and unfairnesses in our system, and that to focus unduly on any other variable . . . is to lose sight of what actually makes a meritocracy difficult to attain in practice. Until we tackle this issue at its roots, everything else is a distraction."
	I very much regret that he said that and so do many people in higher education. There is no systematic, conscious, deliberate class differentiation in universities and it is a throwback to a different decade to believe that there is. It is very worrying that a person who will wield considerable power over our universities—to put in terms what the Secretary of State believes—should think that this country needs an old-fashioned class war. That is the last thing this nation needs as it goes into the 21st century.

Nick Gibb: My hon. Friend is right. It says in the Schwartz report in section B.5 that
	"DfES analysis shows that pupils from low-income households are over-represented in schools that add the least value to pupils' performance."
	That shows that it is the schools that are letting down children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, not the admissions process.

Tim Collins: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to him for putting his finger, in a very systematic way, on one of the most profound reasons why many of our young people are being let down at a very early age indeed, well before the age of 18: the absence of the proper introduction of synthetic phonics teaching, which has such a huge beneficial effect on literacy and numeracy, especially for those who come from backgrounds where they are not familiar with books and whose parents may not be likely to take a primary role in educating them in literacy and numeracy. My hon. Friend is right: that is where we need to tackle the problems, rather than penalising universities for not taking someone at the age of 18 and adjusting for what may well have been more than a decade of being let down by the school system.

John Bercow: I entirely endorse what my hon. Friend has just said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). Does he not think that a considerable part of the blame for the bad teaching of, for example, reading lies with people like Kimberley, Meek and Miller—self-professed experts in the teaching of reading and well-known Marxist academics—who are on the record as saying:
	"Within the psycho-semiotic framework, the shared reading lesson is viewed as an ideological construct where events are played out and children must learn to position themselves in three interlocking contexts."?
	Does that sort of rubbish not account for the destruction of the life chances of a generation of children in our state schools?

Tim Collins: I am always both amazed and impressed at the ability of my hon. Friend to memorise large sections of text. His ability to memorise that chunk of text is even more impressive than usual, and I am delighted to say that it leads me to a different point that I want to make that relates, funnily enough, to Marxist ideology. [Hon. Members: "Ah."] Professor Crampton, who is the professor of east European history at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford university—a man who therefore knows quite a lot about east European politics in general and Marxist regimes in particular—wrote a letter to The Times a few days ago about the comments, to which have I referred, made by Professor Sir Martin Harris, the new university access regulator. He said:
	"Professor Sir Martin Harris is not alone in believing that class should play a significant role in determining university admissions policy; this was also very much the view of the communist-dominated regimes which came to power in Eastern Europe immediately after the Second World War."
	He continued:
	"Universities were given strict quotas on how many from each class they could admit with the result that, regardless of aptitude, intelligence, interest or attainment, it became very difficult or even impossible for those stigmatised as 'bourgeois' to gain entrance into university."
	My hon. Friend, in his characteristic way, has perhaps put his finger on the sinister thing that may be behind what the Government are about.

Anne Campbell: In the hon. Gentleman's little rant about reading standards, he ignores the fact that examination results at the ages of 14 and 16, and at A-level, are now better than they have ever been. We should be proud of that. It is useful that we are raising standards in the secondary sector, but I want to refer back to the class issue for a moment. Is it not true that students from non-traditional backgrounds, whom we discussed extensively during the debates in the Committee that considered the Higher Education Bill, have lower aspirations and very often, because they do not know anyone who has attended a top university, do not apply because they think that the university is expensive or not for them? We as politicians, as well as the universities, certainly have a great deal of work to do in persuading those youngsters that they can apply and that they can succeed.

Tim Collins: The hon. Lady makes two interesting and important points. Her first point relates to exam standards, and I refer to the findings of the Government's own Tomlinson report, which indicates that there are accelerating and growing problems with basic functional literacy and numeracy among large numbers of young people who leave school with very good exam results. That is very much what employers are saying. If her view is that literacy and numeracy are getting better in this country, I wish she was right, but I am afraid Tomlinson concludes emphatically that that is not the case.
	As for the point about some students from non-traditional backgrounds being put off because they think that university is expensive, what on earth does the hon. Lady think that the implications of introducing top-up fees will be in respect of their assessment of whether university is too expensive for them? I point out that the former Secretary of State for Education and Skills—now the Minister for the Arts, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris)—said:
	"for many lower income families the fear of debt is a real worry and could act as a bar to higher education".
	Absolutely. Under the Government's proposals, students will have twice as much debt when they graduate as under Conservative proposals.

Ivan Lewis: Going back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), does the hon. Gentleman accept that not one child who has benefited from this Government's literacy and numeracy strategy in primary schools has gone into further education, higher education or the labour market, and when people claim that there are no improvements in literacy and numeracy they miss that fundamental point?

Tim Collins: The Minister appears to have misunderstood his own Government's figures. They indicate that the literacy and numeracy hour— an invention of the previous Conservative Government under the superb Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard)—did produce some notable progress in literacy and numeracy attainment levels until 2000. In other words, that was in the pipeline—it was working through—but then, at the point when it might have been expected that a Government who had been in office for three years would begin to make a difference, it ground to a halt, and in each successive year since 2000 there has been no further upward movement in literacy and numeracy standards.
	I am delighted that the Minister has, inadvertently, I suspect, paid tribute to the superb attainments of my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk when she was the Secretary of State for Education, but I am afraid that that is not something from which he and his colleagues can take any comfort or credit.

Julian Brazier: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way in his powerful speech, but as a further point on numeracy for the hon. Member for Cambridge, would he like to comment on the fact that Oxford university, which has figured rather heavily in the discussions so far, has so despaired of the school mathematics system in this country that it now has a four-year mathematics course instead of the three-year course of a few years ago?

Tim Collins: My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point; there is an issue here that needs to be dealt with in the schools system, not in the university system.
	I had intended to spend a moment talking about the absurdities of the 50 per cent. target, but I do not intend to do that, beyond recording that there are now more and more academics, including Professor Michael Sterling of the Russell group, and more and more employers, including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, who utterly reject the contention that the 50 per cent. target is either necessary or desirable.
	That is again a fundamental difference between the two parties: the Government are obsessed with the 50 per cent. target, but we will scrap it. It is sometimes said that there is little to tell between the parties these days, but there are some big differences here. We believe in equality of opportunity; they believe in equality of outcome. We believe that universities should select on academic merit; they believe that just about anyone should be admitted. We believe in fitting the student to the rigours of academe; they believe that if they do not fit together, it is the course that should be dumbed down, not the students who should be better chosen. We believe that we should reward parents who work hard to teach their children to read, to familiarise them with books, to stretch their minds—and who, perhaps, even scrimp and save to get them better teaching. They believe that anyone who dares to encourage their children to rise above mediocrity should be ostracised and punished. We think that becoming a graduate ought to make life better for those graduates' children; they think that being a graduate means that their children should have less chance than them to follow in their footsteps. We believe in more science and more technology—more physics, biology and engineering. They just believe in more social engineering. We believe that universities should be free to decide their own admissions, their own access policies, and to run themselves. They believe that universities should be governed by an old-fashioned class warrior guided by legislators whose shoulders are groaning under the weight of all the chips, and kicked to the ground so that the state can keep its jackboot firmly on their windpipe.
	Labour's old tribal loyalties and class hatreds have not gone away—they have just been hidden for a while. The mask is slipping. With an election coming, and core Labour voters to reassure, a blood sacrifice has to be made to the old socialist gods—and butchering middle-class aspirations will fit the bill nicely.
	The stakes are high. The reputation, integrity and independence of our universities are in danger. Conservatives will fight for merit, excellence and real fairness. It is essential for our country that we should prevail.

Kim Howells: I beg to move,
	To leave out from 'policies,' to end and add 'a point which was repeatedly made clear during the passage of the Higher Education Act 2004 and is now enshrined in that legislation; notes that the Opposition opposed the passage of that Act; welcomes the annual publication of the higher education performance indicators which enable institutions to reflect on their own position; abhors the recent misinterpretation of those indicators as targets or quotas linked to funding; agrees that admissions to higher education should always be based on merit; further welcomes the recent report from Professor Schwartz on fair admissions to higher education; agrees that it is for institutions themselves to decide how to implement the Schwartz principles; supports the Government's policies to widen participation in higher education and open access for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with the potential to benefit; congratulates the Government and the higher education sector on the steps they are taking to achieve this goal; notes that the most powerful driver of increased participation is to raise standards in schools; commends the new student support arrangements which will make higher education free at the point of use and fair at the point of repayment; further commends the establishment of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) which will result in more financial support for students and more outreach work to boost applications from under-represented groups; and further notes that universities' admissions policies will be outside OFFA's remit.'.
	I am delighted that we have the opportunity to debate this issue and that I am able to respond to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), who I thought made a good fist of his argument until his final rant, which was full of silliness and an avalanche of cliché. I welcome the opportunity because so much has been said about Government interference in university admissions, much of which has been entirely wrong. Considering that we have recently had a number of debates on higher education, I am concerned that the hon. Gentleman still labours under so many misconceptions. Like others whose job it is to feign outrage, fill newspaper columns and feed the open maws of radio and television, the hon. Gentleman should know that it is a little inconvenient to let facts get in the way of a good story, but I prefer facts to misconceptions. I am therefore pleased to have the chance to set things straight today, and I know that he will welcome that.
	The first misconception is that the Government want to tell universities how to manage their admissions process. Nothing could be further from the truth. Admissions should—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should listen for a moment. Admissions should and will remain the sole responsibility of institutions. It is for universities and colleges to decide whom they admit and how they do it. We made that clear when we published our consultation document on widening participation in April 2003, and we have said the same thing ever since.
	The second misconception is that the Government set targets and quotas to dictate how many students from low-income families, state schools and deprived areas each university must accept. It has even been said that universities are penalised if they do not meet those quotas. Nothing could be further from the truth. That myth has wafted around ill-informed circles in the aftermath of the publication of the Higher Education Statistics Agency, or HESA—

Ivan Lewis: Hezza?

Kim Howells: Perhaps that is a better pronunciation. As I was saying, that myth arose in the aftermath of the publication of the HESA performance indicators, despite the fact that HESA and the Higher Education Funding Council for England have stated that the numbers do not represent quotas, or even targets. They are simply a barometer measuring where universities are in terms of access, and where they could be, all things being equal.

Robert Jackson: I welcome the Minister's comments, but does he think it sensible of HEFCE and HESA to have changed from using A-levels as the comparator to using the Universities and Colleges and Admissions Service tariff points, which include GNVQs and AS-levels alongside A-levels, as a measure for university entrants? Does he not think that they should reconsider that decision?

Kim Howells: I wish that those bodies had told me about those figures before publishing them. They came as a surprise to the hon. Gentleman and they certainly came as a surprise to me. Many universities have done a great deal of good work to meet the previous benchmarks and targets, and the change took everyone by surprise. I will be interested in seeing the reasons for it.
	The performance indicator figures were developed six years ago by the universities and the funding council as a tool to inform institutions of their relative position compared with their peers. They are published once a year and it is up to universities to decide how to use them. The Government do not force any university to meet them, nor do the Government have any other form of access quota or target.
	Far from seeking to impose admissions targets and quotas, we are in absolute agreement with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale that students must be admitted to university solely on the basis of merit and potential. The challenge facing universities and colleges is how to measure that. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills asked Professor Steven Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Brunel university, to lead an independent review of the options that English universities and colleges should consider when admitting students. Professor Schwartz's group included members from both higher education and schools. It consulted extensively and produced a set of principles and guidelines by the sector, for the sector. That is why its recommendations have been so widely welcomed and supported, including by Universities UK and the Standing Conference of Principals.
	The Schwartz report is not a way for the Government or OFFA to interfere with university admissions by the back door. It is a set of guiding principles—developed by the sector itself—that will help institutions to admit students in a fair and transparent way.

Peter Bottomley: I do not want to dispute what the Secretary of State is saying on that at the moment. Earlier, it was said that in effect there are no punishments. Why is it that Northbrook college in my constituency is being penalised financially for what is called under-performing because it would not admit people who it did not think could benefit from the courses on offer?

Kim Howells: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will give me some details on that. I do not know about that case but I will look at it for him.
	The third misconception is that OFFA will have a remit over admissions or will somehow try to interfere with universities' admissions policies. I want to reassure the House that this is not true. I am delighted that Sir Martin Harris has accepted the role as the new director of OFFA. In Martin Harris, I am confident that the Secretary of State has appointed someone who respects institutional autonomy and understands very clearly the great importance of raising the educational aspirations of those young people from lower income families and of encouraging them, and those who teach them, to consider applying for entry to university. I was encouraged to hear the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale say just that, as I was pleased to hear it said by others who intervened on him. It is precisely what we have to do. We must raise the level of aspiration. I know that the poverty that we suffer from in my constituency is not economic poverty. There are poor families in the constituency, but there is a general poverty of aspirations, such as aiming for the best universities and the best education for those young people.

Patrick McLoughlin: Bearing in mind the Minister's clarifications, will he remind the House of OFFA's budget?

Kim Howells: As I recall, the budget for OFFA will be about £500,000 a year. I will get some details on that for the end of the debate for the hon. Gentleman.
	We have heard some quotes from Sir Martin Harris, and I will give the House two more. He said very clearly:
	"Access to university must be on merit (including aptitude) alone."
	He also said:
	"Universities are autonomous. Parliament has frequently upheld this principle . . . and we surrender it at our peril."
	I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take some strength from that.

Julian Lewis: I listened carefully to what the Minister just said. He said that entry would be on merit including aptitude. That suggests that merit will have to be calculated by other factors as well as aptitude and that those other factors might overrule aptitude. What consideration have the Government given to the famous Bakke case in America? It was a defining case where somebody was refused admission to an institute of higher education and then discovered that he had scored higher marks than someone who had been given a place. The courts in America, in a keynote ruling, decided that that was an invasion of the individual's rights and instructed that that must never happen again.

Kim Howells: I am sorry to have to disappoint the hon. Gentleman about that. I do not know about that case. I will try to read about it. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, and many others, through interventions, have pointed out that the best indicators are those A-levels that we have; no question about it. However, there are circumstances sometimes—it must be left to the universities in question to decide what those circumstances are—where other things should be tested as well as a straight A-level result. That is important.

John Maples: Will the Minister give way?

Kim Howells: I shall make a little progress and then I will certainly give way.
	We are not simply relying on Sir Martin's respect for institutional autonomy and his willingness to work with the sector on that basis. All along, we have made it clear that OFFA will not have any remit over university admissions. That is enshrined on the face of the Higher Education Act 2004, and the access agreements, which OFFA will oversee, will focus on how best to generate and attract applications from under-represented groups. OFFA will not consider institutions' admissions policies; it will not impose any admissions targets or quotas; and institutions will propose their own milestones, or indicators of success. We expect that the vast majority of institutions will honour the requirements in their access agreements.

Tim Collins: The Minister said that the Government would not impose targets or benchmarks, and now says that OFFA will not impose targets or benchmarks. Will he explain why he accepts the first nine or ten words of the Opposition motion, but rejects the reference to
	"externally imposed targets, quotas or benchmarks"?

Kim Howells: The core of my argument is, with respect, that the hon. Gentleman misunderstands OFFA's job. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who is sitting next to him on the Front Bench, suffered with me as we read OFFA's regulations; it was my first job on my first day in post, and it was terrible. The hon. Gentleman should read OFFA's regulations and then he will see for himself. [Interruption.] He may well have read them, but he has not understood them.

Tim Collins: The matter is important, and the Minister knows that academics and others will study his words carefully. Can I take it that he agrees that
	"universities should be solely and wholly in charge of their own admissions policies",
	the part of the motion that the Government amendment does not delete, and that those admissions policies should proceed
	"without regard to any externally imposed quotas, targets or benchmarks"?
	Does he agree with those words, and is his only objection that he thinks that we have misunderstood his policy? May I have a yes or no answer to that question?

Kim Howells: Yes; I agree and am trying to make that point clear in my speech. It is not OFFA's job to try to impose conditions on universities. It is up to universities to decide whom they take, how they take them and how they judge them. I hope that together the hon. Gentleman and I have made that clear to the House.

John Maples: I understand that OFFA's purpose is to improve and monitor universities' access plans and that if a university wants to raise tuition fees above £1,150 a year, its plan must be approved by the director of OFFA. If the director of OFFA does not approve such a plan, presumably the university cannot raise its fees, in which case he has direct power over universities' admission policies.

Kim Howells: That point does not concern admissions within a university; it concerns raising the tuition fee. The tuition fee may only be raised to a maximum of £3,000 if Sir Martin Harris judges that the agreement between OFFA and the university stretches that university on reaching potential students who do not currently apply to university. That might involve a university doing what it does at the moment or doing more than it does at the moment. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) looks dubious.

John Maples: I would like to believe the Minister, but if Sir Martin Harris does not approve a plan, presumably the university cannot raise its fees, in which case OFFA has enormous power over the financing of the universities if it does not approve of what they are doing. It is surely incorrect to say that OFFA has no say or influence over universities' admissions policies.

Kim Howells: The hon. Gentleman is encapsulating what is wrong with the Opposition's argument. This is not about the way in which a university conducts its admissions procedure, but about how it tries to encourage applications from parts of society that do not provide students at the moment. I will give an example of what I mean. Oxford has been much maligned in the course of this debate; wrongly, because it is working very hard in some communities to raise the aspirations of young people who may not have the confidence to go to Oxford and will wish to apply to other universities that are nearer to home or are where they think they would be more comfortable. Oxford is not getting the accolade that it deserves for doing that work. As OFFA would recognise, it is not trying to take X number of students from this social class or from that postal code; on the contrary, it is trying to reach those parts of society that universities are not reaching at the moment. That is a wholly good thing.

Anne Campbell: While we are on the subject of access plans, will my hon. Friend pay tribute to the excellent work that is done by students' unions in trying to encourage access? Every year, Cambridge university's students' union sends hundreds of students into the community and into schools to talk to students and to encourage them to apply to Cambridge. Such efforts should be rewarded and applauded.

Kim Howells: I am very much aware of the efforts that are made by students' unions, especially in Cambridge. They do a terrific job. I am encouraged by the joint approaches that universities are now taking. They need to tap the potential of those parts of society that are not being tapped because they need high-quality students who will not drop out but stay throughout. OFFA's great role will be to encourage the debate that should be taking place between universities and everyone who is interested in trying to widen applications and increase the number of people who go to university.

Nick Gibb: Do not the Minister's comments about poverty of aspiration imply that problems lie not with universities, but with schools, and that he and his Department should examine why our comprehensives are not raising people's aspirations in relation not only to Oxbridge and the top universities, but to life as a whole?

Kim Howells: The hon. Gentleman is right; that is what we have to do. However, I would argue with Chris Patten—or is it Lord Patten?—[Hon. Members: "Not yet."] It is only a matter of time. On the "Today" programme the other morning, Chris Patten gave an interview in which he said that the main thrust of the argument concerns raising aspirations. I do not disagree with that. However, he is wrong, and is being a bit lazy, in that he has not considered what OFFA is designed to do. There is no way of short-circuiting the problem of trying to raise standards in schools, which is the absolute priority of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards.

Robert Jackson: The Minister is being very patient and reassuring, but will he clarify one point? If a university decides that it wants to use interviews as part of its method of finding out about the quality of the candidates that are offered, would that be a perfectly proper and legitimate approach for it to adopt?

Kim Howells: Most universities will use a mix of methods, and properly so. A-level results will certainly be the prime mover, but other factors may apply in certain circumstances. In today's edition of The Guardian—which I rarely read these days, as the hon. Gentleman probably knows—a woman writes about the difficulties that she had in getting into Oxford. She got one interview, which was pretty awful, went back to pick up her coat, and met an historian who persuaded the university to take her.
	Although such chances are welcome, they should happen more rarely because they should be built into the system to ensure that opportunity and access are fairer.

Jonathan R Shaw: Will my hon. Friend confirm that it would be appropriate for OFFA to intervene in a case in which it had approved a university's access plan that included the provision of a £300 bursary, but that sum was not provided? Surely everyone thinks that there should be a system of recourse in such circumstances. Although that situation is highly unlikely, provision to address it should exist in legislation.

Kim Howells: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House that that is precisely what would happen. If a student entered what could be an expensive contract, yet suddenly found that the rules had changed, OFFA would have a responsibility to intervene. He is right that I would expect OFFA to take such action.

David Chaytor: May I pursue that point? Although I fully accept that hefty benchmarks are not targets to be imposed, is it not the case that there are enormous discrepancies between the benchmarks and real situation in several of our leading universities? Does my hon. Friend think that, if more of our leading universities accepted the best practice described by OFFA, the gap between performance and benchmarks would gradually close?

Kim Howells: I would expect OFFA to fulfil a role that would do much to spread best practice, but different universities will do things in different ways. The university of Glamorgan, which is in my constituency, has a fine record of being what it calls a "community university". It has an excellent symbiotic relationship with local industry and communities, but it is a different creature in many ways from some of the Russell group universities, including Cardiff university, which is only 15 miles away from it. I do not think that universities will be drawn more closely together or that there should be a single model or paradigm to define what a university should be. Different universities will fulfil different functions, and universities themselves should decide which students to take and how to judge that.

Helen Jones: I am pleased that a few other universities have been mentioned, because I was starting to think that we were talking about only Oxford. Does the Minister agree that, although universities must determine their own admissions, they must also be more transparent by making what they are looking for and the way in which they will assess merit clear to applicants? Their admissions tutors need to be properly trained in, and rewarded for, carrying out that process, but sometimes they are not.

Kim Howells: I agree with my hon. Friend that that sometimes does not happen, but the situation is getting better. Universities are taking admissions tutors and the process of admission far more seriously than before. I have been impressed by people whom I have met and I have witnessed terrific outreach and bursary award schemes. The distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), seemed to agree that it was about time that other universities were mentioned. His own university in Huddersfield—although I suppose that his own university is the London School of Economics—is doing terrific work and has an especially good relationship with further education colleges. It is exploring the interesting possibility of offering foundation degrees.

Alistair Burt: We appreciate the generosity with which the Minister has given way. Is not the nub of the issue his ability to satisfy and reassure both Conservative Members and the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) on the point about the number of students from specific backgrounds who go to particular universities? He would not be satisfied unless something happens in relation to those statistics. How can he reassure the Opposition that universities will be free to carry on their admissions policies—bearing in mind what he said about attempts to bring everybody in—if those statistics do not change? If those statistics do not change, what is the point of OFFA in the minds of some of his hon. Friends?

Kim Howells: That is a good question and a good point. OFFA must make a difference, or there is no point in its being there. I hope that the difference will be that Sir Martin Harris will be able to have such a discussion with universities, and with each individual university on a university-by-university basis—or a higher education institution-by-institution basis—to try to understand how they can further stretch themselves in reaching out to those communities. But I emphasise that that is not the same as saying that he will have any power whatever to force those universities to adopt new admissions policies, to impose quotas on them or to meet benchmarks. He does not have that power, and he will not have it.

Chris Grayling: Will the Minister then explain why, when the original draft letter to the director was presented to the Higher Education Bill Committee earlier this year, it specifically referred to the HEFCE benchmarks as something that should be taken into account?

Kim Howells: As I said earlier, the benchmarks are numbers that, all things being equal, one would expect the figure to be at. I would expect Sir Martin Harris to want to take a range of variables into account in his discussions with universities, and that will be one of them, but it will not be binding on any university. I reassure the hon. Gentleman and the House on that.

Barry Sheerman: Can I push my hon. Friend further on that? As he probably knows, having done his homework since taking his new job, the Select Committee did not want, or did not see the necessity for, OFFA. Everything that he has said in his speech seems to suggest that it does not really have a role. What would happen if a university, or a college in a university, were making decisions about admissions that were absolutely reprehensible, and everyone could see that it was swayed in a particular way? Is he saying that OFFA and the Government would do nothing, even in the case of a glaring injustice?

Kim Howells: I can only repeat to my hon. Friend what I have already said: OFFA has no responsibility to intervene in the admissions policy of any university. However, I would expect OFFA to have an adult conversation with the vice-chancellor or the board of that higher education institution to try to persuade them that they should be considering things differently. By the way, I do not know of any higher education institution or university that is behaving in that way—looking for that kind of trouble would be perverse in the extreme and I do not expect them to do so. I was lucky to have dinner with the Russell group on Thursday evening, and I did not detect that any university was looking for that kind of confrontation, or that they saw any sense in it, as they would essentially be cutting themselves off from a huge potential reservoir of bright students.

Barry Sheerman: To take the argument a step further, is OFFA therefore a substitute—rather an expensive one—for a good chat in the Athenaeum, or does it have a substantial role? My hon. Friend, who is an old friend of mine, has not convinced me and even other Labour Members that OFFA still has a role.

Kim Howells: I have tried to describe the role. Perhaps my hon. Friend does not like it. I have not been in favour of storming the Athenaeum since about 1968, and I thought for a long time that only permanent secretaries went there to discuss how they appeared before the Public Accounts Committee. Clearly, however, vice-chancellors go there too.

Evan Harris: Will the Minister give way?

Kim Howells: I must make progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Evan Harris: The whole House recognises how generous the Minister has been with interventions. I think that he accepts that Oxford's problems in not having enough state school attendees are partly due to the shortfall in the number of applications that it receives from state school students. If he accepts that even more research evidence is showing that higher prospective debt will put off people from state school and poorer backgrounds, does he agree that it is wrong for Chris Patten to argue, as he was reported as doing in The Times, that increasing top-up fees and the level of debt is a solution to getting more state school applicants? How does the Minister solve the funding problem that Oxford faces: increasing top-up fees, increasing debt, fewer state school applicants?

Kim Howells: I do not accept that apocalyptic vision of the future of Oxford. Oxford gets a good deal of money from the taxpayer—there is no question about it—and it will get more, but I think that the basic problem is not a financial one for most families. The deal that our young people will be offered after 2006–07 as a consequence of the Higher Education Act 2004 is probably one of the best deals that they will ever be offered. I do not get irritated very often these days, having survived the Utilities Bill, when the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) was pouring scorn on me hour after hour, day after day, week after week, but the fact that so many young people from poorer families do not go to university is not because they are scared of debt. That may be a factor in the case of some people but it is not the main factor. It is about aspirations and applications.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Kim Howells: I will not give way again—well, I may give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), who used to be my boss.
	We have a huge job to do in trying to raise those aspirations on the ground. It is my job to try to explain the benefits of that funding package to all sorts of students. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) will disagree with me about that, but we must take a far less condescending attitude towards so-called working-class families. They have produced brilliant academics. The professor in charge of the CERN project went to Mountain Ash grammar school. His brother was the National Union of Mineworkers lodge secretary at Deep Duffryn colliery. There is nothing to stop these young people going forward. The difference is that he was a Mountain Ash grammar school kid, the same as I was, and we had our aspirations raised. What we have to do is try to raise aspirations throughout society.

Hywel Francis: I was going to help the Minister with that irritation that he was talking about. Peter Evans was one of the students whom we taught 20 years ago. What I am hearing is both encouraging and a little worrying. The picture that is being presented on both sides of the House is specific to full-time and young students. What will OFFA do to assist adult and part-time students?

Kim Howells: I can certainly tell my hon. Friend what the Government will do. We will make grants more available to part-time students and they will be important. We will talk to universities about part-time students, because it will be a problem for universities and there is no ducking that problem. They can get more money out of full-time students than they can get out of part-time students. My hon. Friend makes a valid point. If we are going to encourage universities to reach out to communities, to provide bursaries and to try to widen access, one of the areas that they will have to look at seriously is part-time students. I expect that to be part of the offer that they make. I would not talk about forcing that upon a university because that is not what we intend to do, but it is an important issue.

Nick Gibb: Will the Minister give way?

Kim Howells: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, let me make absolutely clear what our policy is and what it has always been. Our policy is that universities should be solely and wholly in charge of their own admissions. There should be no externally imposed quotas or targets to admit students from particular backgrounds. OFFA will not have any remit whatever over university admissions. I hope that that has laid the myths to rest.
	I want to move on to what the real issues are and what the Government are doing about them. We face an historical and stubborn problem in our society: the underachievement of many young people who come from less advantaged backgrounds. That social class gap starts to appear very early on in the lives of young people, to the detriment of our society and economy. By the time that people enter higher education, the gap in participation between higher and lower social classes remains stubbornly and unacceptably wide. Young people from professional backgrounds are five times more likely to enter HE than those from unskilled backgrounds.
	We are determined to continue to address the problem, and we make no apologies for doing so. To ignore it would be grossly irresponsible; we would be denying many with the potential to benefit from higher education the opportunity to do so and denying our industries and services the opportunity to benefit from the skills and knowledge that such people could bring.
	Social engineering is not, and never will be, the way to widen participation. To widen participation in HE, three essential conditions need to be met. The first is attainment. The ultimate driver to widening participation is increasing attainment in schools. It is the Government's responsibility to ensure that, right from the early years, the education system enables every individual to realise their full potential, and we are doing that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) said, this year's exam results were the best ever for those aged 14 and 16, and at A-level.
	The second condition is raising aspirations. We have talked a good deal about that. It grieves me that there are so many bright young people with very good A-levels who are not applying to the best universities, in terms of the money that those universities receive for research and so on. Schools, colleges and universities are already doing vital work to raise both attainment and aspirations by offering, for example, summer schools, master classes, mentoring, visits to universities and talks by undergraduates or university staff. We strongly support those efforts and the commitment that is being shown to widening participation across the HE sector.We also recognise that the Government have a role to play, which is why we are supporting universities' efforts through the "Aimhigher" programme and other initiatives.
	The third condition that needs to be met is applications; applications, not admissions, are the real issue in access. As I have said, the evidence shows that many young people with top A-level results are not applying to the universities that may be the best match for their talents.
	I am proud of what the Government are doing to broaden participation in HE through the new student support arrangements, which will make higher education free at the point of use and fair at the point of repayment. It is worth pointing out that all students will benefit from greater support while they are studying and all graduates will repay less per week than they do now. Those earning up to £15,000 will not have to make any repayments and those earning £18,000 a year will pay just over £5 a week, so no matter what their social or financial background, students will have nothing to fear when considering whether to enter higher education. I challenge anyone to find a better deal.
	I hope that I have made our position clear, so that we can stop debating the myth of Government interference in university admissions and talk instead about the real issues. There is no Government interference and no admissions conspiracy. We are not in the business of social engineering; we are in the business of seeking to extend opportunity and finding ways to open access to HE for those from disadvantaged backgrounds with the potential to benefit. We are proud of the steps that we are taking to achieve that goal and of the efforts being made across the HE sector to develop and seek out talent in all parts of society.

David Rendel: The Minister has just challenged us to find a better deal; he may find that, at the next general election, when we offer the young people of our country the chance to get rid of top-up fees and current tuition fees, and offer to introduce grants for less well-off students, they think that that is a better deal.
	The most prosperous countries are those that invest the most in higher education. Ensuring that our most capable citizens get a place at university is critical to the future of our economy, so there is no question but that university admissions policy is an important subject for us to debate. However, it is staggering that the official Opposition have chosen this subject as its top priority. Had this been the Liberal Democrats' Opposition day, there is no way that we would have let the occasion slip by without using it to allow the House to scrutinise last week's hugely significant change of policy on our troops in Iraq. Matters of life and death and war and peace are the most crucial that any Government have to decide, yet the official Opposition simply have nothing to say. So university admissions it is.
	There are two important principles. The first is that access to higher education should be fair. It should not depend on people's ability to pay or on their background. It should depend only on their ability to make the most of that higher education. That is why we oppose any tax on learning. Labour taxes learning by imposing tuition fees and top-up fees. The Conservatives intend to tax learning by imposing commercial rates of interest on student loans. Under both parties, access is about a person's ability to earn, not to learn.
	The second principle is academic freedom. The state has no business—I hope that we all agree on this—interfering in academic decision making. It is not competent to do so. The state has a legitimate and important role in ensuring a level playing field in university admissions, but it should not interfere in the management of admissions. That is the crucial distinction. Hon. Members will be aware that Conrad Russell's contribution to discussions on higher education will be sorely missed. As he so succinctly put it in another place:
	"the market cannot select and the state cannot manage"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 June 2004; Vol. 662, c. 569.]
	Starting from those two principles, Conservative policies fail on two counts. First, the motion speaks about "academic merit", but their policy would result in some top-class students from disadvantaged backgrounds being excluded from university by the fear of debt. Secondly, the Conservatives agree that the state is a bad manager of higher education, but they show no understanding that selection cannot be left to the market if we are to ensure fairness in admissions. The motion suggests that Government intervention is a threat full stop, but to allow universities complete freedom to use taxpayers' money without accountability is an abrogation of responsibility that is as short-sighted as it is unjust.
	Recently published performance indicators from the Higher Education Statistics Agency reveal only a marginal increase in representation from traditionally under-represented groups. In particular, the top research institutions continue to lag behind. The Sutton Trust finds that pupils from independent schools are far more likely to attend a leading university than their counterparts in the state sector with the same grades. Its report states:
	"While 45 per cent. of independent school students who obtain the equivalent of an A and two Bs go to a leading university, only 26 per cent. of state school students achieving the same grades do so."
	That is not acceptable. It is the duty of public policy makers to do something about it. Taxpayers' money is involved and it is shocking to see the Conservatives so cavalier about its use.

Evan Harris: Is not the situation even worse than that? Increasing research shows that of those students who get the same grades on the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service tariff but who come from different academic backgrounds, such as a top independent school with a high teacher-student ratio compared with an inner-city comprehensive, those from the comprehensive do better. We need to move away from simple A-level predictions across the board as a way of judging who would best benefit from higher education.

David Rendel: That is the last time that I take an intervention from my hon. Friend because he deals with what I was about to come on to. However, I am grateful to him for making that good point.

Robert Jackson: Since the hon. Gentleman will not answer the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), perhaps he will answer me. What proportion of young people from independent schools, compared with state schools, get three As at A-level?

David Rendel: If the question is what I think it is, I am afraid that I do not know the answer. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to tell us.

Robert Jackson: The figure is 46 per cent.

David Rendel: I am grateful for that piece of information, although I am not sure where it gets us.

David Chaytor: Surely the real purpose of the question put by the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) is not the proportion of those from independent schools with three A-levels but the relationship of those with three A-levels from state and independent schools in terms of the proportion admitted to our leading research universities. That is the issue.

Robert Jackson: indicated assent.

David Rendel: I hope that was the point I was making, which is why I was a little confused about the hon. Gentleman's question.
	The Conservative motion is critical of a higher education admissions policy in which class is seen as the principal issue. Our criticism of their policy is that they seem intent on making sure that class is very much the issue. They are content with a situation in which fewer than 10 per cent. of pupils—those who attend private school—are privileged above the rest, because admission to university is almost wholly dependent at present on A-level grades.
	How do we know that A-level grades are not an adequate measure of the potential of our best students? There are two pointers, one of which has just been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). It has been shown that young people from state comprehensives, on average, achieve better results in their university finals than young people from independent schools who have the same A-level grades.
	The second pointer, which my hon. Friend did not raise, is something I discussed with the chairman of the Headmasters Conference last year, live on the "Today" programme. I asked him whether he would expect two hypothetical young people of equal ability, one of whom went to an independent school while the other attended the local comprehensive, both to achieve the same A-level grades, or whether he would expect the one who had attended his independent school to achieve better grades. Of course, he dared not say that both would obtain the same grades, because independent schools sell themselves on the basis that young people, of whatever ability, will achieve better grades if they attend an independent school than if they attend a state comprehensive. If that were not the case, few, if any, parents would think it worth while paying the huge fees charged by independent schools. However, if pupils of equal ability achieved better grades at an independent school than at a comprehensive school, the principle that pupils with the greatest potential should be admitted to the best universities could be met only if attention were paid to factors other than A-level grades—in particular, the school they attended. Admitting pupils from comprehensive schools with lower A-level grades than those from independent schools is not only right but necessary if those with the best potential are to obtain the best places.

Barry Sheerman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with research by the Sutton Trust suggesting that we need a system of standard assessment tests and more variable ways of assessing students at 18, or any age, before they go into higher education? The A-level is not a good predictor.

David Rendel: It is one predictor and should not be excluded from the means for choosing who has the greatest potential. A SAT system is one of the other ways in which we could make better choices. Interviews are another, and application forms offer another way for admissions tutors to seek out differences between applicants. There are many ways of making those choices and the Minister was right to suggest that a variety was best.
	Even Keith Joseph, when he was Secretary of State for Education and Science, recognised that an unfair distribution of educational opportunity was the unacceptable face of the free market. That is why he rejected education vouchers. Today, the Conservatives propose a voucher-type system in higher education, which would inevitably curtail the expansion of the sector to embrace historically under-represented groups.
	There is one point on which we agree with the Conservatives: OFFA should go. Our argument, however, is not that all intervention is wrong, rather that it would make much sense for the Higher Education Funding Council to do the job. We supported university access plans because we believe that universities need to be held to account for their use of taxpayers' money; the state should not manage admissions, but it should ensure a level playing field.
	The Conservatives do not share our views. No surprise there. What is more disappointing is the performance of the Labour party—a party founded in the noble tradition of the struggle for social justice. The Liberal Democrats support widening participation. Ministers deserve congratulation for their commitment to that objective. Our concern is that their policies tend to have the opposite effect. The Minister said in his speech that there was no such research evidence, but the Government's own research for the student income and expenditure survey tells them that. Summarising her findings from the survey, Professor Claire Callender concludes:
	"Top-up fees of £3,000 will put even more poor students off university."
	There is no question but that fees, particularly top-up fees, are a deterrent and that is particularly true of those who come from poorer backgrounds. It may not be logical, but it is true.
	Moreover, the proportion of English school leavers applying to university has fallen in each of the past two years, so there is evidence that people are being put off applying. The Minister said that applications were the important point. Young people are being put off applying to English universities. Six years of tuition fees and the expectation of top-up fees have done nothing for social inclusion.
	We must judge the significance of OFFA in this context. The Education supplement of The Guardian reports that Labour MPs feel let down by the pussycat powers of OFFA. Given the late appointment of the director and the time scale involved, the same report points out that
	"Offa will have less than a day to go through each institution's"
	access plan. But Ministers told us in a document issued during debates on the Bill that OFFA would impose no
	"extra monitoring requirements beyond what HEFCE already requires",
	and that
	"Normally . . . a simple assurance . . . once a year that"
	universities
	"have satisfied their access agreement obligations, would suffice."
	OFFA was never going to have real teeth. It was always going to be a bureaucratic irrelevance. Apart from anything else, it does not have the resources to do the job. The only significance of OFFA lies in what it was designed to conceal. It was designed to pretend to Labour Back Benchers that top-up fees would have no impact on widening participation.
	Given this background, there is no shortage of scope for a serious Opposition party to contribute to the debate. What is on offer from the Conservatives? My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) did a wonderful demolition job on Conservative higher education policy in his speech in the House on 14 September. He referred, for example, to the omission of any mention of part-time students from their policy. During the Committee stage of the Higher Education Bill, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) said:
	"Part-time studies . . . do more to widen participation in higher education than anything done in any other part of our higher education system"—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 2 March 2004; c. 427.]
	He was right. Why, then, not a single mention of part-time students in Conservative policy? That puts into perspective their efforts today to claim to defend the disadvantaged student.
	The Conservatives' plans are highly regressive. That is the conclusion of, among others, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Higher Education Policy Institute, the National Union of Students, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education and the Association of University Teachers. Under Conservative policies the poorest 30 per cent. of students would face a 25 per cent. hike in loan repayments, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. If a newly qualified teacher or nurse were to try to repay their loan over five years, that would eat up 30 per cent. of their take-home salary, before rent, fuel and food. A graduate teacher who repaid their loan over 20 years would end up paying back the equivalent of almost two years of total salary.

Chris Grayling: I know the hon. Gentleman has taken a careful interest in the Conservative higher education policy. Will he confirm the inaccuracy of his most recent comments? He knows that our policy retains the income-contingent system of repayments that the Minister praised so lavishly and said would be no deterrent at all to anyone going into higher education.

David Rendel: I can confirm that the level at which graduates start paying and the amount that they pay once their income rises above that level is the same as under the Government's policy. That is my understanding, and it does not negate either of the two comments that I have just made. It is irrelevant to both. If graduates choose to repay over five years to avoid having to pay massive interest, that would eat up 30 per cent. I did not say that they had to; I said if they choose to. The hon. Gentleman was not listening to my comments. The Conservatives want the poorest to pay extra so that the richest do not have to pay any fees—a sort of socialism for the rich. So much for removing class from their higher education policy.
	There is a measure of agreement in the House that perhaps the most important consideration when discussing fair access to higher education is the system of qualifications at secondary school. It is noteworthy that a Conservative motion on university admissions contains nothing about the importance of secondary education. It is widely recognised that individuals who are disadvantaged lower down the educational ladder are much more likely to be disadvantaged in university admissions.
	A fair system of student funding and support and an approach to admissions that takes account of potential as opposed to exam results alone are important parts of the equation, but so are rigorous efforts to ensure that no child is left behind in our schools. The key is to increase the numbers from lower socio-economic groups who stay on at school after 16. Tomlinson's model neatly fits the "climbing frame for learning" that the Liberal Democrats propose in our paper "Quality, Diversity and Choice", which recognises different routes into and paths through higher education, catering for part-time as well as full-time study and valuing vocational as well as academic learning. That amounts to a far more joined-up approach to education policy.
	The widening participation agenda in higher education cannot be viewed in isolation from the further education sector, schools or early-years provision. In the past two years, a formidable lobby has been constructed in support of our universities. Liberal Democrats want a similar dedication of purpose to deal with the needs of our colleges.
	Conservative understanding of educational progression is that of the royal route from school to school sixth form to full-time higher education. However, nearly as many young people take A-levels at sixth form colleges and general further education colleges as at state secondary schools. Young people at the former institutions tend to come from lower socio-economic groups. That is why further education colleges are so important in the widening participation agenda. The need to build strong progression routes from vocational level 3 to higher education is also important.
	Conservatives have little to contribute to that wider agenda. The headline proposal in their exams policy was announced by the leader of the Conservative party on 18 October. He stated:
	"We will change the system to ensure that the highest grade of A-level should only be awarded to a fixed proportion of students sitting the subject that year."
	The absurdity of such a position is clear. It means that the standard represented by the A grade will vary from year to year. Two students who receive the same mark a year apart could receive a different grade, depending on the overall performance of their year group. That has obvious implications for their chances of going to university and makes it impossible for employers to judge fairly between candidates of different ages on their academic qualifications.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) has said that the fixed proportion will be the top 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. That means a reduction of between a half and three quarters in the numbers awarded the highest grade this year.

Tim Collins: Does the hon. Gentleman reject the Tomlinson recommendation that a minority of those who currently get the A grade should get the top grade in future? Tomlinson proposes that the top grade should be A-plus and A-double-plus. If the hon. Gentleman criticises the idea of reducing the numbers who get the top grade at A-level, he explicitly rejects a Tomlinson finding.

David Rendel: I was referring to norm referencing. The Tories have got it wrong, because norm referencing means that one cannot accurately compare years.
	The Liberal Democrats would redirect funds towards early-years education. The importance of early-years education has already been mentioned and we want the Government to move further towards the goal of universal child care provision, building on the progress that has already been made. Those policies are important because they contribute to the wider distribution of educational opportunity, with long-term benefit in access to higher education.
	The Conservatives are hunting a pussycat that they have chosen to believe is a tiger, while their credibility on the main issues diminishes by the day. It is sensible to say that the state should not try to make academic judgments, but it is not sensible to say that public policy has no role in ensuring fairness and a level playing field in university admissions.
	Class should not be a factor in determining educational opportunities, but claiming that economic and social circumstance has no impact on the life chances of many in our society is an irresponsible denial of reality. Subsequently to pursue policies that will deepen rather than heal social divisions is unforgivable.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It may be appropriate for me to remind hon. Members at this point that Mr. Speaker has placed a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Barry Sheerman: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), and I listened carefully to what he had to say today.
	So far this has been an interesting but slightly depressing debate. At one stage I thought that no university other than Oxford would be mentioned, although to an extent that was put to rights later. I certainly had great reservations about listening to a Front-Bench spokesman talk of jackboots and blood sacrifice. A degree of subtlety is required in debate, and I think that that went beyond the bounds of civilised political dialogue. Perhaps I am a little older than the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins). Let me tell him that using such terms is not appropriate in this democratic parliamentary Chamber.
	I have a particular reason for being depressed about the level of today's debate. We are, I suppose, approaching the run-up to an election. People who are normally sensible, and pretty good at understanding the boundaries of debate, are affected by that. Most of them feel that all of us, whichever side we are on, want to improve the education system of our country and do not want to damage it, and we have an unspoken agreement in the Select Committee and in the Chamber; but, especially here today, I detect a pre-election tendency to say extreme things in order to make political points. If those involved only thought for a moment, they would realise that that does a great deal of damage to confidence in the education system out there in the country.
	Only last week, I had the privilege of taking the Select Committee to Finland and Norway. One of the most important comments on the British education system that I have heard when abroad came from the permanent secretary of Norway's education department. He said, "You have come to ask us questions about our education system. Now that I have nine British Members of Parliament here, I would like to ask you some questions. We spend much more money per head of population on education in schools, but we do not do nearly as well as you in international tests such as PISA"—the programme for international student assessment—"and TIMMS"—the teacher's instruction management and mapping system. He demonstrated that by showing graphs on his computer. He then said "Something extraordinary has happened in the last four years. You have shifted your educational achievement in schools upwards to a significant extent. Whatever you are doing in the United Kingdom, we want to copy it." It is worth noting that someone outside the normal dialogue of party politics, and outside the country—and, as a civil servant, with no axe to grind—thought that standards in UK schools were being driven up and wanted to know how that was being done. It was clearly not just about money.
	The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale suggested that secondary comprehensive schools were letting everyone down. Evidence to the Select Committee leaves me in no doubt that—regardless of whether we agree with all the Government's reforms—standards in British schools are being driven up. The Select Committee has quite a good memory. In one of our reports, we expressed the view strongly that the 50 per cent. target was nonsense. Indeed, under cross-examination the permanent under-secretary admitted that the target had not resulted from international studies, research or anything else of that kind; the Government wanted a big, round, sexy number. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) was there at the time.
	All of us who know about British education know that standards are going up. That inevitably means a surge of both young and older people into higher education. We will surge past that 50 per cent. target, and I think it very damaging to impose any restriction. The 50 per cent. target will be achieved because more and more young and older people will be highly qualified. I celebrate that, and I will have cause to do so again and again.
	The Committee also said, on many occasions and in at least two reports, that we believed that the only criterion for admission to university should be ability. Governments should not interfere: ability is what counts. However, we have also pointed out that some of the traditional methods of judging that ability are not as effective as we thought they were. Indeed, some of us have visited Stanford, Princeton and other Ivy league and leading universities in the US to see how they manage admissions. Interestingly, they base their judgments on more criteria. They did not base their judgments on one examination, but took into account SATS, school tests, school recommendations, and personal work that they set for the students. However, those universities did not hold interviews. They said that all their experience and the research suggested that interviews were not effective. I can remember asking Stanford staff why they did not conduct interviews. They said, "If we wanted more people like us, we would interview."
	If interviews are not acceptable at 11, 16 and 18, I would point out to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that we have some mission creep with regard to structured discussions, although my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards assures me that they are different from interviews. All the research shows that interviews are an unreliable way to choose people. Interviewers show a strong tendency to look for people with the same qualities as themselves, which means that students with middle class, professional backgrounds are more likely to succeed.

Robert Jackson: What the hon. Gentleman says about interviews may be right, but does he agree that just as it is a matter for Stanford whether it uses interviews, so should it be a matter for our universities to make a free decision on whether to use them?

Barry Sheerman: It is to some extent a free decision, but good practice and research results should surely lead our leading research universities to evaluate the techniques that they use. If there is valid research that suggests that interviews are an unreliable way of choosing talent, our universities should be careful about using that means of selection.
	Sometimes our debates in this Chamber are divorced from all personal experience, but I wish to give the House the benefit of some of mine. I have four children, all of whom have gone to university. My eldest two daughters went up to university in the same year, although there is 20 months difference in their ages, because one had a year off. When they made their applications 10 years ago, I was astonished by the intricacy of the application process and how knowledgeable parents needed to be. I am very interested in education, I have been a university teacher and I graduated from the London School of Economics. I thought that I had a high level of knowledge, but I was astonished at how complex and—in the case of Oxford and Cambridge—almost secretive the system was.
	For a start, kids who went to comprehensive schools were worried because Oxford and Cambridge did not have the same exams at the same time as other universities. The Committee has consistently recommended that they should take place at the same time. Oxford and Cambridge also judged people on predictive grades, not those actually achieved. Long before the Government's conversion to post-qualification decisions, the Committee recommended them. Parents not only had to know a lot about Oxford and Cambridge universities, but—as we went into the detail of applications to individual colleges—we realised that we needed to know which colleges were over-subscribed that year and which were not. We needed to know which subjects were popular and which individual colleges would be likely to be a good bet or a bad bet. The sophistication of knowledge required was amazing. No wonder so many young people from less traditional backgrounds did not apply. Their parents did not have the knowledge to do so. That knowledge was granted only to a few people—usually those who had relatives who had studied at Oxford and Cambridge.
	I want to strike a note of reality. My role as Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Skills must be balanced by the real experience that I had and which my constituents have when they apply to the universities. There have been big changes in the past 10 years—I have seen considerable change at both Oxford and Cambridge—but it is still a pretty complex world for the average child whose relatives have never been university, let alone to Oxford and Cambridge. We should have some humility about that.
	If a vast disproportion of people in the leading research university come from the private sector—public schools—that is a cause for concern. To consider that fact is not to fight a class war; it makes good common sense. We all know, however, what such a debate can deteriorate into. I was sad that Chris Patten—for whom I have a great deal of time in many other respects, such as his attitude to Europe—got into the debate about whether to go private and so on. He is not in the House of Lords—I did know that—but he has seven honorary degrees and is the chancellor of Newcastle and Oxford universities. He is quite knowledgeable, but his contribution added nothing to the debate because the two extremes do not help the discussion.

Evan Harris: On the issue of interviews, if I saw the research, I might agree that an untrained interviewer might not add much to the process, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that this is about far more than untrained interviewers at Oxford university? We require the opportunity to carry out the extended aptitude tests, which have been developed by the likes of John Stein and Jane Mellanby, to separate the top performing students, all of whom are predicted to get four A-levels, from those who are bright but have been very well coached. We need that differentiation, which is why the interview in our system is so important, given that we do not have the sophisticated techniques that the American universities have already developed.

Barry Sheerman: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I should like more sophisticated techniques to be used. The research should be considered in different ways to find out what works elsewhere. For example, there is also a world of research into the interview techniques used in the private sector. I am not adverse to learning from the private sector and applying that information to university admissions, but the traditional way to interview is very dangerous if interviewers think that they know how to interview and to assess without training, a relevant background in the technique or real experience. Perhaps I could be persuaded to accept certain kinds of interviewing.

Chris Grayling: If the hon. Gentleman is so impressed by the admissions processes of the Ivy league, can he explain why those universities have a far lower participation rate from lower socio-economic groups than our leading universities?

Barry Sheerman: I am sorry, but that depends on which bit of the Ivy league is considered—[Interruption.] I freely admit that there is a problem, which is faced by all developed countries. Good educational opportunity has been vastly extended to a much higher percentage of the population during the past 20 years—I make no party political point about that—but whether in France, Germany, United States or Norway, which last week admitted a 20 per cent. rate of functional illiteracy, the real difficulty is that none of our methods seems to be able to lift the educational attainment of the bottom 20 to 25 per cent. of the population. In every education sector, perhaps outside countries in the far east, no one seems to be able to penetrate that under-achievement. Across the political parties and the developed world, we do not seem to be able to reach those lower socio-economic groups. We all share that problem.
	I have only a few minutes left, but I want to finish by saying that the Minister knows about my concerns and those of my Committee about the Office for Fair Access. I look back with some nostalgia to our recommendations on OFFA when we considered the higher education White Paper. We did not think that such an organisation was necessary. We thought that benchmarking needed to be refined because there were some problems with it. All parties agree that we need to know about who is entering university and the social backgrounds they come from, so that if there are challenges we can address them. We agree that we need that knowledge and data, but what we do with that might be contentious between the parties. The view of the Select Committee on Education and Skills was that we should get that data and information, and that what we had instituted in 1999, with HEFCE having benchmarks, was a system that could be improved but that it was a pretty good system.
	As the Higher Education Bill passed through Parliament, we had quite a good parliamentary process because OFFA has, in some senses, been modified almost to what the Select Committee wanted; it is a very gentle mechanism. I might have parodied it by asking whether it substitutes for a meal in the Athenaeum discussing shortcomings with a vice-chancellor, but I think the message will get across that it is not quite what some Labour Members expected when it was first mooted and when their votes were needed in the top-up fees debate. That is to be brutally honest; it seemed to be part of the package, but we have moved away from that.
	Finally, I return to the matter of where we want to be. Members of all parties want people of the best ability to get into higher education. Those abilities are very different. No one should pretend that our higher education institutions are the same; they are diverse. My hon. Friend the Minister of State mentioned Huddersfield. Huddersfield university is very different from Sheffield, York or Leeds; they are very different universities with different missions. They are different again from the London School of Economics and Cambridge university. Those two universities were not mentioned in the opening remarks, but they are moving up the international competitive league, unlike Oxford, which is languishing.
	We have diverse institutions of very different quality, and they are always looking for the best students for the education they deliver. No Government, including this one, should try to get in the way of that process, and I celebrate that.

Robert Jackson: The public have a legitimate interest in university admissions policies, and it must be recognised that that interest is bound to be most acute at a time when the state is restoring the payment of private fees by students. There is a natural concern in the public mind that that should not result in social exclusion.
	The universities will benefit in every way from the greater freedoms that will come with private fee paying, but they must respect these legitimate concerns, which I want to emphasise are, and always have been, shared by every academic I have ever known.
	Having said that about the legitimacy of the public interest in university admissions policy, I agree with my Front-Bench colleagues and my good friend the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who chairs the Select Committee, that the procedure that the Government have adopted is highly dubious. They have decided that university admissions policies— not admissions themselves—will be supervised by an external regulator. I want to make four points about that.
	First, the head of the Government's deregulation unit produced an interesting report last week in which he pointed out the danger of regulatory creep. That is a standing danger, and I hope that the Government will keep a close eye on it.
	Secondly, it is always a mistake to have two different and distinct regulators operating in a single field. That is the situation that we have now with the Office for Fair Access operating alongside the higher education funding councils. A problem is built into the architecture there.
	Thirdly, external regulation necessarily involves quantitative performance indicators. I agree that that is not a bad thing in itself, but we all need to be aware of the slipperiness of the concepts that this involves and how they can be widely misunderstood by everybody—not only by the people inside the education business, but more importantly, by those outside.
	In spite of all the Minister's good words, it is the easiest thing in the world for "benchmarks" and "projections" to come to be understood, within universities and outside them, as "targets" and "quotas". The Government must ensure that the vital difference between a benchmark and a target on the one hand and a quota on the other is always respected; above all, they have a duty to ensure that potential students are not put off by the thought, which might be put into their mind by some sections of the press, that there is a quota operating against them.
	Fourthly, and most fundamentally, the Government should reflect on the tension in this sphere as in many others between self-regulation and external regulation. At the Labour party conference last month, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made an eloquent speech—even containing poetry by an American academic—about the need to nourish and respect the ethos of public service and public responsibility in our public institutions. He needs to ask himself how that project fits with the culture of external regulation that the Treasury continues to propagate under his leadership, not least in the matter of university admissions.
	There has been some little debate about the appropriate benchmarks for our top research universities. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), talked about young people with one A and two Bs at A-level. He seemed to be unaware of the position of those with three or more As. To him I say that the standard of admission for our world-class universities is not one A and two Bs; it is three, four or even five As. Distinguishing among people of that standard is the problem.
	The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) understands well the point I am about to make. Of the young people who come to our universities with three or more As at A-level, 46 per cent. come from independent schools. It follows that the universities that recruit students with three or more As at A-level are bound to select disproportionately from the independent schools. Oxford and Cambridge, recruiting 45 per cent. and 42 per cent. respectively from the independent schools, are in fact recruiting below the 46 per cent. benchmark.
	Anticipating what the hon. Gentleman might say, let me point out that I agree that our great universities have a job of work to do to communicate what they have to offer and its relevance to people in state schools. It is a terrible fact that 40 per cent. of state sector pupils who get As at A-level do not apply to Oxford or Cambridge. Those universities have to make a real effort—but so also do the schools. I heard a head teacher of a comprehensive school in my constituency, which is not far from Oxford, say that he does not recommend that his young people apply to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which he attended.
	The only way to change the pattern will be to increase the proportion of students at state schools who achieve good academic results at A-level. The Minister expressed his surprise at the recent HEFCE benchmark revision; I ask him to see to it that HEFCE has as a relevant consideration the benchmark of three or more As at A-level.
	My final point is about globalisation and its implications for our universities. Our debate so far has been rather parochial and introverted. Universities have always been ecumenical institutions, and never more so than today. The House should reflect on the real point of the Laura Spence story. When she was refused a place at Oxford, she did not take up the place that she had been offered at Edinburgh—the university attended by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Instead, she went to Harvard.
	In a significant development that has not yet been sufficiently noticed, the American Ivy League universities are opening their "means-blind" admission to students from the European Union. If we in Britain allow the impression to grow that well qualified students will be denied access to our own world-class universities because of the type of school that they attended, it will follow, as night follows day, that they will find their way to world-class universities in America, where they will be welcomed with no hang-ups and no prejudices. As most people will choose to stay in the country where they have done their university studies, most of that talent will be lost to us as a nation.
	We need to understand why the Americans cherish their universities—they spend almost twice as much as a share of gross domestic product on them as we do on ours—and not least why Americans of all classes and backgrounds cherish their Ivy League universities. We need to understand also why American universities are ruthless—I use that word advisedly—in their pursuit of the best and the brightest students from throughout the world.
	Some mistaken commentators think that the Americans back their universities because they are rich—a sort of indulgence that a rich society can afford. On the contrary, the United States is rich because the Americans have always backed their universities. They have recognised, as we in Britain and in Europe still have not properly recognised, that in today's global knowledge-based economy the best brains are a critical strategic resource. They are the prime source of intellectual innovation, and the worldwide recruitment of the best brains by American universities is at the root of that country's current technological supremacy and cultural and political dominance.
	We need to rise above the parochialism of our traditional focus on class in this country, which is reflected in this debate. If Britain and Europe are to become the world-beating, knowledge-based societies that the Government have told us they want in the famous Lisbon agenda, a good beginning is to recognise how this will require a network of world-class universities, preferably more than two, recruiting world-class students, whatever their national origins, or their social origins within this country. We look to the Government to ensure that this new OffToff will never be allowed to forget this.

David Chaytor: I begin by picking up on the point that the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) made quite powerfully towards the end of his speech about the significance of the United Kingdom maintaining its ability to identify and to keep its very brightest and best young people. He is telling us that this is a deadly serious debate, in contrast to the comment of the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel). There may be good reasons to use an Opposition day to debate the policy in Iraq and the redeployment of the Black Watch, but that should not undermine the importance of a debate about widening access to and increasing participation in universities.
	Over the years I have made something of a special study by observing the ways in which the Conservative establishment in Britain—I use the word loosely and generously, I hope—has deployed an enormous range of devious practices and procedures to protect its own historic pleasures and privileges. Usually, when they get to the end of the line in deploying rational arguments to protect those pleasures and privileges, they decide that it is all a communist plot anyway. The House owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), who resorted to that sort of rhetoric at the end of his speech. He exposed the bankruptcy of the Conservative party's criticism of OFFA and everything it stands for.
	I was surprised that in the great flurry of self-indulgent rhetoric with which he completed his speech he did not use the term "social engineering". In every previous debate that I have been involved in on this issue with Opposition Members, they have always resorted, if not to communist plots, then to social engineering. It was up to my hon. Friend the Minister, to his credit, to say that the debate is not about social engineering. The difficulty that I have with the concept is that it implies that the system that we now have, which has developed over many decades and longer, is a value-free, non-socially engineered system.
	What we have now in our university admissions system is in fact social engineering of the highest order. It is social engineering that was originally built and designed to create an elite and to limit the privileges and pleasures of university entrance to that elite. That must change for precisely the reasons that the hon. Member for Wantage has spelled out. Intellectual capitalism is the essential commodity of every successful economy in the 21st century, and any nation that tries to limit the development of intellectual capital or stunt the opportunities for all our young people to extend their potential or to develop it as far as possible will lose out. Such nations may well lose out to the United States, which may happen at the moment, and in years to come they might lose out to India or China, which is the No. 1 reason why we must take access issues seriously.

Robert Jackson: The hon. Gentleman is being unfair to the Conservative establishment. Under the last Conservative Government, the proportion of our young people going to universities rose substantially. When we entered government, 6 per cent. of our young people went to university, and when we left the figure was pushing beyond 20 per cent., which does not square with his picture of a designing establishment.

David Chaytor: That is true, but the rise was entirely the consequence of the decision by the Labour Government of the 1960s and early 1970s to reduce selective admissions policies in secondary schools, thereby enabling far more young people to acquire the qualifications to give them admission to university. We should not forget that point.
	When we make comparisons, we must remember that unemployment is one of the biggest triggers to increased participation in universities. When unemployment is high, more people—young people as well as mature students, but particularly mature students—apply to university. When unemployment is low, other options exist, which is why it is particularly encouraging to see numbers increase by 1 per cent. year on year, although we have had record employment levels for the past seven years.

Chris Grayling: Will the hon. Gentleman remind the House that the only time in living memory when participation by state school students at Oxford and Cambridge universities met the recent Higher Education Funding Council benchmarks was in the 1960s, before the abolition of grammar schools, which he just described?

David Chaytor: No; that is not the case. The change was not the abolition of the grammar schools but the decision by some grammar schools to move into the independent sector. If one redefines what constitutes a state school, clearly the number of young people coming from state schools also changes. If we compare like with like—the number of young people coming from state schools now with the number who came from what were state schools in the 1960s and 70s—the year-on-year increases are significant, although they are not enough.

Evan Harris: I strongly support the hon. Gentleman's point and ask him to comment on whether it is appropriate to support grammar schools without also mentioning secondary moderns. Will he recognise that the assisted places scheme removed role models for state school students and put them in the private sector? Now, many such students are returning to the state sector and applying to university, and they will become role models for their peers.

David Chaytor: I agree entirely. It is not appropriate to discuss one half of the system without reference to the other. I am tempted to do so, but if I did, I would get carried away and would use up all the time allotted for this discussion of access and participation.
	We all agree that the issue concerns how merit is defined and assessed. Without wishing to revisit the Laura Spence affair, I find it interesting that in justifying the decision not to offer her a place at Oxbridge, many people at the Conservative end of the spectrum say, "Having five As at A-level is not the sole criterion of merit, and leading universities must take many other factors into account." However, those same people now challenge any move away from a rigid dependence on A grades at A-level. Frankly, they cannot have it both ways: either we accept that A-levels, or some other examination grades or marks, are the be-all and end-all of the definition of merit and potential or we accept that they are one part of a wider picture. The debate does not concern whether merit should be the main criterion but how we measure merit and the different factors that must be introduced into the equation.

Robert Jackson: In relation to the Laura Spence story, the hon. Gentleman should remember that all the applicants had brilliant A-levels. It was an extraordinary farrago, given that of the six people admitted to study medicine at Magdalen in that intake, four came from state schools and only two from independent schools.

David Chaytor: I do not want to revisit that saga, because we could spend a long time discussing it. My point is that we must be consistent in our assumptions about the best way of assessing potential, which, as is increasingly evident, is not to rely purely on A-level grades.

Evan Harris: I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that some of those who thought that the Chancellor's Laura Spence allegations were unfair nonsense agree with him, for exactly the same reasons. He should understand that all applicants to study medicine at Oxford and Cambridge, even the two thirds who cannot get in, are predicted to get straight As at A-level; that is why we need to find ways of identifying, through interviews and further testing, those with the most potential.

David Chaytor: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, although I am not quite as confident that the system of interviewing that he advocates is the best way of identifying the students with the highest potential. It is not simply a matter of further testing, but of different testing. A progressive consensus is emerging on the need for a broader base for assessment. Professor Schwartz makes that clear when he says in his report, which is the background to much of this debate, that the evidence, which he summarises, shows that
	"equal examination grades do not necessarily represent equal potential".
	The challenge for university admissions tutors is to ensure that they have the tools to provide the finer degree of differentiation that is now needed.
	When we consider the differences between students' backgrounds and schools—I would not expect any Minister to express this view, but I hope that they have some sympathy with it—it must be self-evident to any objective observer that a young person who has been to a school where about £20,000 a year per pupil has been invested in the educational process must have an easier task in obtaining three Cs, three Bs, three As, or whatever is required, than someone who has been to a school where £10,000 a year has been invested, and that that student must in turn have an easier task than someone who has been to a school where only £4,000 has been invested. Whether we are considering education from the ages of 11 to 18 or five to 18, we cannot discount the impact of small class sizes, well-motivated and well-paid teachers, and a high level of resources in terms of books, equipment, computers and playing fields. All those factors contribute to a student's A-level grades, in addition to their natural ability and potential. If we are serious about identifying those with the best potential, it is entirely logical, reasonable and fair that the student's background and the school that they attended must be factors in that consideration.
	Much is made of the state's having no responsibility for intervening in the admissions process. That is true. No Government or state agency could intervene directly in the admission of about 250,000 students to British universities every year—that is a task beyond their capacities. We therefore need to draw the distinction between intervening in the process of admitting each individual student and intervening in universities' admissions policies in a benevolent way that ensures that their policies reflect best practice. The Schwartz report provides one or two models of good practice, although they are not necessarily the only ones. We must not see this debate as one about how we get more or fewer of our preferred kinds of students into leading research universities, because it affects every university in Britain, including the smallest modern university serving a largely local catchment area.
	Campaigning for Mainstream Universities has done sterling work on admissions, although some of its members have a long way to go to improve their records. It has also produced models of good practice. Who could possibly be against OFFA making it a requirement that a British university that wishes to charge the higher fee should adopt an admissions policy that reflects best practice and on which there is broad consensus? It is beyond belief that anyone would challenge that concept.

Robert Jackson: The hon. Gentleman assumes that best practice will always be uncontroversial and something on which everyone will agree. He must understand that universities may well disagree among themselves about what constitutes best practice for admissions. Does he agree that that must be respected?

David Chaytor: I agree completely, which is why I said that there should not be a single model that constitutes best practice. However, universities must be obliged to defend their concepts of best practice.
	There is a view that the strength of our universities lies in the purity of academic freedom. Professor Schwartz defines that as the freedom to choose
	"what will be taught and to whom",
	but I am not sure that that is the best definition of the concept. In other aspects of public life in which huge quantities of taxpayers' money are invested, people have an interest in ensuring that the money is well invested and that all taxpayers and their children have a reasonable chance—preferably a reasonably equal chance—of benefiting from that investment.
	For some reason, UK universities have managed to create the myth that they should not be held accountable in the same way as primary and secondary schools and further education colleges and that they should not regulated in the same way as the nuclear, water or gas industries. However, it is a basic principle of any broad social democracy that it must be in the public interest to have regulation so that the use of taxpayers' money is accounted for.

Barry Sheerman: Does my hon. Friend agree that if we were to pursue that direction carelessly, we would end up running UK universities as a form of nationalised industry? Surely we would not want that.

David Chaytor: I do not think that that is the case. The water and gas companies are not forms of nationalised industries, and our primary and secondary schools are increasingly unlike nationalised industries. The key issues are the amount of public money that goes into the sector and the mechanisms for accountability.
	To go back to a point that I made earlier, anyone who is under the illusion that there is not a problem should examine the figures published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency over the past few days. They show the enormous discrepancies between the benchmarks and the performance of some of our universities. I recall reading out a long list of such statistics in Committee on the Higher Education Bill because I believe in the principle of accountability and that such figures should be on the parliamentary record.
	There is not only a question of elite universities versus the rest, because there are large differences between the performances of individual universities that are, to all intents and purposes, at the same position in the pecking order. There are large differences among members of the CMU and among Russell group universities. However, the average discrepancy of Russell group universities is 8 per cent., and that of CMU universities 1 per cent., so that situation must be addressed. We are having a serious debate about a matter that is integral to the success of both our universities and the British economy, because in this century each successful nation must recruit its best talent from whatever source it can.

John Maples: I would go along with some of what the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) said, but what he must face is that, while it may be legitimate for Parliament to take an interest in university admissions policies, if it tries to interfere in them, it is necessarily at the margin—saying to a university, "You should accept B rather than A, when you would have preferred A rather than B." That seems an inevitable consequence. If we start doing that in pursuit of a political objective, we will get less able people in our universities, and our universities, which are currently the best in Europe—although not in the world, because we are way behind the Americans—will be in danger of ceasing to be so.
	We have a legitimate stake in this argument because a lot of public money is involved. I want to examine the purpose of university education. There are personal and public benefits to educating someone at university. The personal benefit to those of us who have been there is obvious—it broadens our minds, teaches us to think and opens areas of intellectual enjoyment that we would not otherwise have open to us. Undoubtedly, almost everybody who goes to university receives a personal benefit. There is also a public benefit in that, if I need an operation in the health service, I benefit from the consultant's education. It is in our interest as a society to ensure that able people become judges, permanent secretaries, professors of medicine, consultant surgeons, doctors, lawyers and even, dare I say it, politicians, and that there is a group that is really well educated.
	From the public point of view, it is important that the people who get that education are those who are most likely to benefit from it and get the best degrees. The current system of A-levels is perhaps not the way to ensure that; perhaps rather than trying to adjust A-levels, we ought to try to improve them. However, the question is: how do we get those most able people into the system? I do not care whether they come from a Huddersfield comprehensive, Stratford girls grammar school or Winchester, as long as the country ultimately gets the best people that it can to do those jobs.
	We must face the fact that there is a problem with the 50 per cent. target. I doubt whether 50 per cent. of 18-year-olds want or could benefit from sitting in lectures, writing essays, researching in libraries and doing experiments. Some people absolutely do want to do that, and are capable of taking advantage of it, and for them we should provide it. By definition, however, once we reach 50 per cent., we are reaching the halfway ability range—traditionally, it is thought that people who are at about 125 on that scale can benefit from universities, which may be wrong—and I suspect that that is territory in which vocational education is much more important. I do not know a lot about that, but I suspect that we are weak in vocational education. Were I advising an 18-year-old who was a marginal case as a university entrant, I think that I would say, "You'll have a much better life, and probably make more money, as a good electrician than as a bad lawyer."

Barry Sheerman: I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman's speech, but it is a stereotype that most of our students are 18-year-olds. In fact, most of them are not. People come into higher education at all ages and 18-year-olds are the minority now. Mature students are a larger percentage of those coming into higher education than 18-year-olds. In addition, much of the higher education in our expanded system is vocational of a sort.

John Maples: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but I hope that he also takes mine: there is no point suggesting that 50 per cent. of the population should study academic subjects in the way that those at our leading universities do. That is absolutely right for some people, but I suspect that it is not right for as many as 50 per cent. The basis of those two educations is also different. Someone who will benefit from studying Latin and Greek, for example, at Oxford or the London School of Economics, may need a different kind of education between the ages of 14 and 18 from someone who will not do that.
	I want to take that point a little further. I went to university in the 1960s, which dates me horribly. I went to a college at Cambridge where 75 per cent. of my year's intake came from state schools. I went to an independent school, and I and those others who went to independent schools were in a minority. No prizes for guessing where most of those 75 per cent. came from—state grammar schools. Many of them were working-class kids. Those state grammar schools gave a bright working-class kid a way into Cambridge or lots of other good universities, although there were not anything like as many then. We can argue about whether we should have abolished grammar schools, but we must provide a route so that the bright working-class kid finds it easier to get into Oxford or Cambridge than he finds it at the moment; apparently, it was a lot easier 43 years ago than it is now.
	What did grammar schools do to give those children that opportunity? There are a few things that we need to try to replicate. Here are some concrete suggestions. Much of the problem is not about universities' admissions policies but about the quality of secondary education.
	There was an academic ethos in those schools. That is difficult to create at inner-city comprehensive schools. It certainly can be created but it is difficult. I do not say that it is impossible; there are some schools that do it.
	I have represented both kinds of constituencies. At the moment, I represent a prosperous middle-class constituency where comprehensive schools can do that. I represented an inner-city area for the first two Parliaments that I was here. At the main secondary school there, 10 per cent. of the kids got five A to Cs at GCSE. That was not only the level of attainment but the level of aspiration. To inculcate that academic ethos there would have been very difficult. Kids who did their homework and talked about going to university would have been considered freaks by many of the children. It is difficult to maintain that aspiration, that work ethic and that academic ethos in that environment.We must therefore find a way of reintroducing—the Government have tried to do it, and I noticed it in comprehensive schools during my own education—pretty rigorous academic streaming. It should be very flexible.
	The problem with grammar schools was selection at 11. I have grammar schools in my constituency. At 16, there is another selection, when many kids go to the grammar school sixth form to do their A-levels. Actually, at sixth form, it is not a grammar school but more a comprehensive, so we need much more flexible transfers. We need to realise that, if we are to get that bright working-class kid into a good university, we must provide the academic foundation at an early age.
	Two of the three grammar schools in my constituency are used effectively as sixth form colleges. They take the kids who want to do A-levels from the comprehensive schools, bringing them into a school with a strong academic ethos. They get very good results.

Evan Harris: I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman responded to two brief points. First, what evidence does he have that the proportion of working-class students—not state school students—in the 1960s in Cambridge was higher than it is now? Secondly, does he have anything to say about secondary modern schools?

John Maples: I understand the argument about grammar schools and why many people felt strongly about abolishing them, but the hon. Gentleman has to acknowledge, as other people do, that when we abolished grammar schools we abolished a route for the bright working-class kid to get to Cambridge. Seventy-five per cent. of my year in my college at Cambridge came from the state sector and many of them were working class. I do not know the exact proportion, but in abolishing those schools we abolished one of the ladders by which bright kids climbed. Our present system is failing those children. It is reflected in the figures that people are talking about. The challenge is not to manipulate university admissions but to raise the quality of state education for bright kids, particularly in inner-city areas.
	I spent a couple of hours last night talking to the former senior tutor at my old college and the head of a college at Oxford about that issue. They both described the enormous trouble that they went to in their outreach programmes, with fellows going around schools that never traditionally sent pupils to Oxford or Cambridge. The head of the college at Oxford said, "We interview everyone who applies to our college. Our benchmark is three As at A-level but we do not say we will not interview you unless you get them. We are trying hard to encourage that but we meet resistance. We do not just meet inertia—we meet prejudice."
	Some schools are saying, "Don't apply to Oxford and Cambridge. It's not the university for you," or something like that. They are prejudiced against them. That must be overcome, too. There is a push and a pull. Schools that do not send people to our top universities must think of encouraging those kids and raising their aspirations, at which point they might go. I do not mean to talk as though Oxford and Cambridge are the only good universities. There are 20 fantastic universities and it applies to them, too.

Barry Sheerman: The hon. Gentleman and I were almost contemporaries: I was at the LSE and he was at Cambridge. The range of universities one could choose from was tiny compared with now. Students now regularly have the choice to go to Warwick, a fast-moving university, or Nottingham, for example. There is such a range of excellent universities, even for the most academic subjects. Oxford and Cambridge have far greater competition for the brightest students. Is not that the truth?

John Maples: I agree. There is a range of universities. People would argue about where the line is, but the Russell group provides fantastic education. The hon. Gentleman is right. When he and I went to university, not only was the percentage smaller but there were hardly any women there. I suspect that it has got more difficult for a man to get in.
	Much has been made of A-levels being a bad predictor of success at university. That is well enough established for us to take it on board. My two friends at the two universities to whom I spoke yesterday described how they try to make that up by various means. The interview is not just about whether they like the guy or not. It is much more sophisticated than that. Many universities are introducing a legal aptitude test that is designed to test people's aptitude and likely ability in studying law. It is difficult, if not impossible, to coach someone for it, which is one of the criticisms of A-levels; people can be coached for them.
	There is also a lot of adjustment. All admissions tutors say, "We are desperate to get bright kids from comprehensive schools, if only to get the Minister off our back and we will make adjustments for it. If someone has two As and a B, we will think, 'Perhaps if they had gone to a grammar school or an independent school they would have got the three As. We will let them in.'" Often, adjustments are made. To encourage, cajole and pester universities about that is fine, but to try to interfere in the process is probably dangerous.
	American universities use SATs. I do not know whether those could be applied here but the vice-chancellor of Warwick university, who used to run an American university, is something of a believer in those, and aptitude tests have a future, too.
	One of the things that Tomlinson has come up with gives us an opportunity to improve the A-level as a predictor of whether people will do well at university. Many of us have a problem with the idea that there can be some arbitrary adjustment to one's A-level results, with people saying "This is what you must do to get to university and we are going arbitrarily to adjust it to the school you went to, your postcode or how rich or poor your parents are." We need a system that is transparent, understandable and objective, or as objective as possible, so that people will know that, if they got in, they did so on merit and there was not some arbitrary adjustment to their results.
	What Tomlinson is proposing with the A-level could achieve that. As the senior tutor of the Cambridge college said to me, "Everyone who applies here has three As or is going to get them. This is no test for us of how able people are. We are getting three or four times as many applicants as we can take. Some of them have four or five As at A-level." We need a better predictor than that. The A-plus, the A-double-plus or whatever Tomlinson proposes may be a way of doing that. The extended essay may be another.
	I suggest, too, that we drop the business of grades and publish the marks. Then we would see what marks the person got in the individual exams that were part of the A-level course. The Americans do that and we have something to learn from them on higher education.

David Chaytor: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that what we do not need is a better predictor of A-level grades? We need to move to a post-qualification admission system where the student already has the A-level grades, whether they are published in the form of marks or not.

John Maples: I think that, with the top universities, that will not make any difference, because all the people who apply either have or are going to get three As anyway. It may help with other universities. I was talking about amending the A-level so that it is a better predictor of what degree people are going to get. I thought that that was the criticism of the A-level: it is not a good predictor of how well one will do at university. I suggest that we need an exam that does that. Part of the problem is that we designed an A grade at A-level and more than 20 per cent. of people now get it. I do not think that that is an adequate differentiator of who should go to the top universities and who is meeting the standards.
	One can study some subjects at university without having done the A-level. I studied law and there was no A-level in law. However, if someone wants to study chemistry or French, they will have to reach a basic standard before they get to university. Tripos courses at Cambridge in maths and natural sciences are being extended from three to four years because of people's relatively low ability in that subject when they arrive. I am told that, in classics, the first term is often spent in intensive language training to bring people up to the stage that they should have been at when they got there. We must be careful not to erode the entry level of knowledge, regardless of whether the A-level is a good predictor of how well one will do. It is also a benchmark of knowledge. I worry that, if we start to interfere in the admissions process, our world-class universities will not be very good.
	I was not going to speak in this debate, because I said what I thought about OFFA in the debate on the Higher Education Bill, but the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education—I am sorry that he is not here—succeeded in confusing me. I thought that OFFA was pernicious; he said that it was not pernicious, but irrelevant. It may be that he has performed a clever trick: he may have persuaded Labour Back Benchers to vote for tuition fees on the ground that he would interfere in the admissions process, and then produced this toothless tiger to reassure people such as me. Unfortunately, he then appointed a real old, hoary left-winger to run OFFA. That was presumably to reassure the people who had become unassured by the lack of teeth in the tiger.
	I was provoked to get involved in the debate by the remark by Sir Martin Harris, who said:
	"class underlies almost all the inequalities and unfairnesses in our system".
	Do people like that still exist? The Government must have found that guy in some intellectual Jurassic park. Apart from anything else, I thought that new Labour had abolished people who thought like that; I thought that that was not allowed any more. I find it unbelievable that a serious academic, the vice-chancellor of one of our universities, appointed to this job by the Government, can actually think like that. However, four days earlier he said that some state schools, particularly in the inner cities, were
	"not able or willing to stretch their ablest pupils so that they can begin to climb the meritocratic ladder".
	The quotes were four days apart; one was in The Times and one in The Daily Telegraph. I do not know which of those things he believes, but I worry that that is the attitude of the person who will run OFFA. If we want to get the best kids and more mature students from whatever background into our universities, we need to do two things.
	First, we need to change the nature of the A-level, so that it becomes a more objective test of whether someone is suitable or qualified, so that the best people can take advantage of university education, and so that it is not simply an exam that people can be coached for at an expensive independent school. Secondly, the Government would do much better to concentrate their effort—and even, dare I say, the £500,000 that OFFA will cost—on trying to raise the quality of academic education for bright kids in inner-city comprehensives.

Hywel Francis: I am encouraged by this debate. I have found it very hopeful, if only for one reason: the number of times that we have discussed part-time and adult students. However, we have not discussed them sufficiently, so I want to concentrate my remarks almost exclusively on them.
	Just before I entered the Chamber, I chanced upon a book by one of the great academics and adult educators, an organic intellectual, Raymond Williams, who died in 1988. It was a collection of his essays, published posthumously and called "Resources of Hope". That is what we have been talking about today. A great deal has been said about poverty of aspiration, but not enough has been said about poverty of opportunity, and that is what the Prime Minister means by an opportunity society. There are echoes of the Prime Minister's recent speeches in the writings of Raymond Williams. We should be talking not so much about social inclusion and exclusion or about social engineering, but about social justice and an opportunity society—for all classes, both genders, the part-time and adult, and the local and not-so local. That is what I want to focus on.
	My hon. Friend the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education is not in his place, but I was greatly encouraged by his support for part-time and adult students, which I greatly welcome. I am sure that his words will encourage that great educational institution established by an earlier Labour Government, the Open university. It will also encourage the adult learners' body, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, and the Universities Association for Continuing Education, as well as all departments of continuing education throughout the country, which have done, and continue to do, excellent work in widening access. I was also encouraged by the support that the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) gave part-time students.
	On a personal level, I am pleased that we are having this debate; I welcome it and congratulate the official Opposition on it. While we are giving bouquets to one another, I should say that one of the most encouraging periods in my academic life was the time of the Educational Reform Act 1988 and onwards, when the then Conservative Government developed the third route to higher education and made official the strategy of widening access. In that period—the 1980s and 1990s—initiatives of the Labour Governments of the 1960s, including the Open university, were again taken forward by another party and Government.
	It is good to focus on what has already been said. The majority of students in higher education are now part-time students or adults. It is insufficient to focus on Oxbridge, as we tend to do; the 18 to 21 club, as some call it; and full-time students. Also, when we are discussing universities' admissions policies, we should not focus only on the work of OFFA—although it is admittedly important—as if the encouraging of widening access could not be done by other bodies throughout the country.

Barry Sheerman: My hon. Friend makes a telling point about the diversity of the population. It is good for students to be not just with 18 to 21-year-olds, in a club. It does them good to meet more mature students, part-time students and a diversity of students from different social and economic backgrounds. That is the beauty of true higher education, is it not? We should all encourage that.

Hywel Francis: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend.
	My hon. Friend the Minister referred to the Government's welcome policy of higher education being free at the point of entry and fair at the point of repayment. Of course, until recent times, that was not at all the case for adult students, and certainly not for part-time students. In nearly three decades of teaching part-time students in higher education, my experience has been one of identifying and trying to eliminate piecemeal the barriers that have existed for the under-represented groups of students.
	The first group that comes to mind are those students that my hon. Friend the Minister and I tried to teach back in the 1980s. In those days, he did not call me his former boss; we were comrades in the class struggle. I am sorry that he is not in his place to hear that.
	Among the remarkable people who failed to get to grammar school—who failed the 11-plus, as I did—were rather remarkable steelworkers and miners. Three come to mind. One is Tyrone O'Sullivan, who is now the managing director of the most famous co-operative in the world, Tower colliery. The second is the late Charlie White, the most sensitive and eloquent writer and orator that I have met, an Afro-Caribbean photographer who worked in St. John's colliery and died in 1985; he was a most remarkable man. The third was the most difficult and awkward student I ever had, now newly appointed professor of continuing education at Swansea university, and a miner in the early 1980s, Professor Colin Trotman. All those escaped through the net, so to speak. For every one of those whom we taught, there were thousands of others who could and should have gone to university.
	In the mid and late 1980s, our department of continuing education focused more on other under-represented groups, such as women returners—the women who came to the fore during the miners' strike. That was in partnership with bodies such as the Dove Workshop, which was founded by women who had their first political and learning experience on the picket lines in 1984 and on Greenham common. They created bodies such as the Dove Workshop and, eventually, the Community university of the valleys, which now exists in many communities across the valleys. Those bodies identified the critical barriers that prevented people from advancing to higher education. They identified ways in which new opportunities could be created by providing advice, guidance, transport support, fee remission, crèche support, flexible learning and part-time learning. Those now are—or should be—mainstream activities in the most advanced-thinking universities.
	Next month I will visit four such universities with excellent track records in widening access to higher education: Staffordshire, Swansea—my old university—the Open university and London South Bank. I shall be going for two reasons. I visited them last year just before we debated the Higher Education Bill. I discussed with their vice-chancellors, students and staff their concerns, hopes and aspirations. I am revisiting them to discover how they feel about the progress, or the lack of it, that we have made.
	There is another more personal reason why I intend to visit those universities. I declare an interest as vice-president of Carers UK and as promoter of the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004. I want to talk to them about that other under-represented group—perhaps the most under-represented group—in higher education: unpaid carers. There are 6 million unpaid carers, nearly 20,000 of whom are in my constituency. I probably have as many carers in my constituency as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) has full-time students in his constituency. That is an interesting contrast.
	We are hoping to run local pilot schemes with three groups to encourage carers to take up learning opportunities. The first involves the 600 young carers—children under 16—in my constituency. We are interested in the extent to which their opportunity for higher education is limited as a consequence of their circumstances and will see how we can assist them. The second pilot scheme involves young parents who want to enter further and higher education and involves the special needs activity centre in Taibach. The final pilot scheme involves older adults who are caring for elderly parents.
	We should be discussing such issues in debates on university admissions policy. I hope that the official Opposition and the Under-Secretary will have something to say about that. My hon. Friend spoke strongly and eloquently in my Adjournment debate last year on part-time students, and I thank him for that.
	I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) on reminding us that we should not be parochial in our higher education debates. There is a wider world that needs to be recognised as part of the phenomenon of globalisation. I remind him, however, that we should not only think global, but act local. Almost all mature and part-time students access universities locally. We must not forget that.
	I was struck by my hon. Friend the Minister's reference to dinner in the Athenaeum. The next time he reflects on developing university policy, perhaps he would be assisted by coming with me to the Community university of the valleys and have lunch at midday, although people there would probably call it dinner, at the Sarn Helen café in Banwen. The celebrated comedian Colin Price, who was from that community, once jokingly referred to Banwen as the road to oblivion, but as Banwen has pioneered the Community university of the valleys, it will not be the road to oblivion that my hon. Friend witnesses, but the road to progress and higher education, and a land of opportunity in an opportunity society.

Nick Gibb: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), with his years of experience. He is right to raise the issues relating to part-time students.
	The Schwartz report is an important study that highlights major problems in our state education system. It is a concern that only 26 per cent. of entrants to a full-time degree course come from skilled manual or unskilled family backgrounds when that group represents 40 per cent. of the population. It is also odd that in a country in which 93 per cent. of children are educated in the state sector, only 57 per cent. of Cambridge university's intake is from that sector. At Oxford, it is just 55 per cent. and at Imperial college it is 63 per cent. At the London School of Economics, the university attended by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), it is 66 per cent. That pattern is repeated for all the top universities whereas for a large number of post-1992 universities the figures are 95 per cent. or higher. Indeed, at the university of Glamorgan, which the Minister cited, the figure is 97.9 per cent. whereas the benchmark figure for that university is 93.4 per cent. What is being done to encourage more students from the private sector to attend that university?
	The reason for the disparity is not that the admissions tutors at Oxford or Cambridge are deliberately excluding state sector pupils out of a snobbish delight. As Steven Schwartz says at paragraph B1 of his report:
	"It is important to note that across all universities and colleges, and all subjects, admissions processes . . . appear to be fair."
	So the reasons for the disparity are far more serious, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) said. At paragraph A18, the report says:
	"Its principal cause is the continuing pattern of lower prior attainment by young people from poorer backgrounds."
	Why is that? Again, the report says:
	"DfES analysis shows that pupils from lower-income households are over-represented in schools that add the least value to pupils' performance."
	In essence, what Schwartz is saying, what the whole row is saying and what the figures clearly demonstrate is that our state schools are not as good at preparing children—in educating children—as the private schools. If the admission tutors at Oxbridge and the top universities are not biased, which they are not, and if the proportion of entrants to those universities is hugely disproportionate to the balance of state/private education, it is clear that the problem is with the state schools delivering the grades and not with the admissions process.
	I fully understand the temptation to tweak the admissions process to help a bright student from a poorly performing comprehensive. I went to a poorly performing comprehensive in my sixth form and understand the problem. I wish that that had happened in my case. However, if we are trying to create policy to address a problem, surely we should look at the cause of the problem, and not simply address the symptoms.
	To counter that argument about state schools, people often cite evidence such as that given in paragraph B7, which says:
	"other things being equal, students from state schools and colleges tend to perform better at undergraduate level than students from independent schools and colleges."
	Some people cite that as evidence that state schools prepare students for university better than the private sector even though they are not achieving the grades that the top universities require. However, that is not what the evidence demonstrates. The reason why, other things being equal, students from state schools tend to perform better is that they have to be brighter and more self-motivated to achieve a given grade in the state sector than to achieve that same grade if they were educated at an independent school. That is the reality behind the evidence. So the evidence again points to the fact that our state schools are not performing as well as the independent schools.
	We then come to the left's argument that the reason the private sector does so well is that all its pupils come from middle-class, educated families who push their children. The left argues that anyone could perform well if that kind of atmosphere prevailed in all our schools. I do not accept that argument either. Of course, some children are more difficult to teach than others and of course a school's GSCE results will be driven, to an extent, by its intake; but the value-added results will not, because they take the intake into account. There is huge disparity in the value-added results of our schools.
	The truth is that such things as school ethos, teaching methods, intellectual rigour and competition within the school make a difference. When I put the argument that we should apply practice in the best performing schools—whether state or independent—to all our state schools, it is greeted with horror by many on the left and by many teachers. They say, "Oh, those methods wouldn't be appropriate for children from this or that socio-economic group". I regard that view as utterly patronising nonsense.
	I have read reports of the important speech made recently by the Chancellor about the public sector. Of course, there is a role for the state in the provision of public services. I am a passionate believer in state education and in a state-run national health service, but by the same token we have to ensure that the state provides high-quality services. It is wrong to think that the state sector carries some aura—some glow—and that in the name of equality it will persuade people to tolerate a second or third-class service. We live in a wealthy country where we all expect first-class service and quality products. I regret that too much state sector provision is second rate—producer focused rather than customer or user focused. Too often, it looks like something from a 1970s nationalised industry. It is up to politicians to ensure that our public services come up to scratch. Too often, we abandon their stewardship to the producer interest.
	If we allow our public services to decline, people will turn against them and look elsewhere. Parents, whatever their background, want high-quality education for their children. It is up to all of us in this place to ensure that our education system provides that high quality. To do so, we need to look at more than funding—the £20,000 spent on private schools, to which the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) referred; we need to look at what is actually happening in our schools, to ensure that they use the methods that evidence shows produce the best results.
	Is it really the best approach that 60 per cent. of lessons in our secondary schools take place in mixed-ability classes? One in five maths lessons is given in mixed-ability classes, as are half of all English lessons and three quarters of history and geography lessons. With the enormously wide range of abilities in our comprehensive schools, is that really the best way to deliver high levels of achievement? Is that what the best schools in Britain are doing? Is it supported by the evidence?
	In fact, the evidence says the opposite. Academic evidence on the efficacy of mixed-ability teaching shows overwhelmingly that streaming or setting produces far better results. Two American academics, Kulik and Kulik, carried out a huge amount of research on the matter and found that setting by ability and then tailoring the curriculum to particular ability groups produced enormous improvements in attainment at a high level, good improvements at other levels and no fall in attainment at the bottom. At that lower level, one could target extra resources and adopt smaller class sizes to ensure that there were improvements there, too.
	The Schwartz report states:
	"Prior attainment is the main known determinant of undergraduate performance."
	If we want to create a fairer admission system, we must look closely not only at our state secondary education system, but also at our state primary school system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) pointed out in his kind words earlier, phonics teaching produces far better reading standards. I could cite a large amount of academic evidence to show that it would ensure that 100 per cent. of primary school pupils could achieve level 4 by the age of 11, regardless of the degree of poverty in the school's area.
	The Schwartz report is important, not because of what it tells us about the admissions process for university, which appears from the report to be fine, but because of what it tells us about our state schools. I hope that the Government will learn the correct lessons from the report and will deal with the problems that face our education system, not the symptoms.

Alistair Burt: The debate has been interesting, and I am pleased to back the motion proposed by my hon. Friends.
	I was puzzled by the response from the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education. I am still unsure whether he can ride the two horses that he tried to ride at the beginning of the debate. Can he reassure Opposition Members and those in university life that OFFA will do nothing more than put a benevolent arm around the shoulders of those who are already doing as much as they possibly can to ensure that everyone from the widest possible social background has the chance to go into higher education, and that it will do that without threat or influence and telling the universities what to do? Can he possibly reconcile that form of reassurance with some of the statistics cited by his colleagues, especially the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), who pointed to the discrepancies between what he described as the benchmarks and what was happening not only in some of the major research universities but also in some others?
	I have a simple question for the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis)—God bless him—who will shortly respond to the debate.

Barry Sheerman: It is the Bury mafia.

Alistair Burt: Indeed. The Bury mafia is at work.
	My question to the Minister is: if, in five years, the proportions of those from independent schools going to Oxford, Cambridge, University college London, St. Andrews, Imperial and Bristol are about 44 per cent., 42 per cent., 38 per cent., 37 per cent. and 36 per cent. respectively, what will that say about the work of OFFA? If those figures remain the same, will the Minister intervene at that stage and say that there must be some change, or will he be content to leave universities be, because they will be seen to have been doing all they can? Much hangs on his answer to that question.
	If there had been enough time in what has been an interesting debate, I would have developed this point: I am not convinced that Martin Harris's remark about class being the root of all the problems in our universities is correct. If we asked universities what is most on their mind at present, they would tell us that it was, first, competition. We sometimes forget that universities are in competition for students, as well as in competition with universities all over the world. They want the best students and are working actively to ensure that they get them. If they do not obtain the best students, they will suffer.
	Universities also want the best teachers. I was intrigued to read that Martin Harris's former university, Manchester, in its strategic view foreword, states that by 2015 it must be attracting
	"at least five Nobel laureates . . . with three appointments secured by 2007"
	and that it must treble
	"the number of staff who are fellows of the Royal Society".
	I wonder whether the university will worry about their socio-economic backgrounds, or whether it will simply recruit the very best.
	If universities cannot compete on a worldwide basis, they will suffer. The university of Shanghai now produces tables showing the world standing of universities. Universities will look increasingly to such tables; that is what will motivate them, rather than necessarily ensuring that their intake has a particular quota and follows a particular pattern.
	At present, Britain's universities do well in international comparisons. Two are in the top 10 and four are in the top 25; only one other European university is in the top 25. Our universities know what they are doing. Are OFFA's aims truly compatible with universities maintaining their current competitive position?
	Of course, universities are worried about China; they are worried about losing out to competition world wide, and increasingly worried about the baseline for their raw material. What has been said on that point is true. During the past couple of years, I have spent some time at four universities: Kingston, Royal Holloway, Bristol and Imperial. Without exception, they report, first, that they have to do remedial work in science when students enter university and, secondly, that they are working exceptionally hard to bring people in. They are building relationships with neighbouring schools and going out around the country. They are especially concerned that the science base is not strong enough and worried about the type of teaching that is taking place. They also all say, without exception, that they do not believe their students are any less bright than previously. They believe their students are as bright, but there is a problem in the teaching and in bringing them up to university level that used not to exist and exists now. That concerns them.
	Class is not the major issue facing our universities. If one of the major issues is ensuring the widest possible participation, class is not the problem. As colleagues in the House have said, this is an old debate. Trying to reopen it will get us nowhere. It raises all the old suspicions in this place. We want to improve participation but we must ask the right questions, and asking about class is not one of them.
	I was not the first person in my family to go to university. I was, however, the last generation to go to a direct grant grammar school and I regret that. Severe damage has been done to that ladder of opportunity for youngsters from a poorer background, the very people about whom we are concerned now. Whatever we do, we will not improve their position, we will not improve the raw material of university entrants, and we will not ensure that our universities are among the best unless we ask the right questions. I am not convinced that OFFA answers the right question or is in the right context for the question in the first place.

Chris Grayling: We have had an interesting and important debate. We have discussed the matter extensively this year, so what is new? Why the debate today? Two things have happened very publicly in the past few weeks that have given us in the Opposition and many people in the higher education sector real cause for concern. The first was the appointment of the new director of OFFA, a man who describes himself as an unreconstructed old Labour class warrior. Is that the right approach for someone who holds such an important position? Secondly, there has been the publication of the HESA benchmarks, sending a ripple of concern throughout the higher education sector.
	As the Minister knows, there are also details behind the scenes—the minutiae now coming out from the Government on the level of fines that can be levied on universities that do not do as they are told, on the detail of the guidance to OFFA and so on. We heard fine-sounding words from him today, as we have before. He may remember that mythical children's book creature, the pushmi-pullyu—the gazelle that has a head at either end of its body, pointing in different directions. As I heard him speak to the Opposition and to his own Back Benchers, he reminded me of someone trying to look in two directions at once. The problem is that one cannot do that.
	The evidence makes clear what the Government are trying to do. The previous Secretary of State, now Minister for the Arts, admitted as much in 2001 when she said that widening access
	"is not a sideshow that can be confined to the admissions or careers office".
	Martin Harris said about class that
	"everything else is a distraction."
	What about the international competitive threat from US universities? What about the challenges to our science base in key subjects such as chemistry and physics? What about funding, which we have debated so much in recent months? It is an extraordinary statement from the outgoing vice-chancellor of one of Britain's leading universities, and it raises a key question. If it is the Government's intention not to interfere in university admissions, why would they appoint as access regulator someone who clearly has a mission to do just that?
	In his opening remarks my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) set out concerns that are shared across the Opposition and the higher education sector—concerns that the Government, for all their fine-sounding words, are set on a course that will eventually damage our higher education system. Our position is straightforward: it will never be the job of politicians to tell our universities whom they can and cannot admit. For all the Minister's comments, it is clear that that is what the Government are trying to do.

James Clappison: My hon. Friend made an important point about the detailed guidance from OFFA, from which the Minister demurred. The Minister tried to give reassurance about that. Is my hon. Friend aware of the milestones that are set for universities and vetted by OFFA, and on which the universities will be judged, to assess whether they are doing enough to meet OFFA's terms? Does he share my interest in knowing whether those milestones will include—[Interruption.] I am referring to the detailed guidance given by OFFA in paragraph 9.5. The Minister should read it. Is my hon. Friend interested in knowing whether those milestones will include details of school type, socio-economic background, parental background and so on?

Chris Grayling: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government have slightly changed their original guidance, rather conveniently. As I said to the Minister in an intervention, they have specifically linked the HESA benchmarks to the milestones that they expect universities to pursue. Although the Government have been careful to say that they will not penalise universities for not meeting those milestones, in the paragraph to which my hon. Friend refers, when it comes to renewing an agreement, which is a different issue entirely, the Government say, "You will want to take this into account when considering renewal, so if you don't do as you're told, you may not get your access agreement renewed."
	That is what we are dealing with, and it is only part of the truth. Last month we debated the new regulations that will allow financial penalties to be levied on universities. As the Minister mentioned, it was his first debate in his current role. After some pushing, he was quite frank—more so than the Government have been up to now—about the implications of his plans. The new regulations go much further than we were told in Committee. Yes, universities will get fines of up to £500,000 if they do not do as they are told. There is more: they face a surcharge of 10 per cent. of their fee income if they fall out with the regulator.

Kim Howells: The hon. Gentleman knows, because he served on the Committee with me, that that can happen only in specific circumstances. If universities put up tuition fees to a particular level and do not stick to the deal, there must be some way of protecting the students who have entered the university on that contract. Is he saying that if a university reneges on a deal with students, it should be allowed to get away with it?

Chris Grayling: What I am saying is that when the Government told us in Committee that the fine could be £500,000, they did not tell us that they would slip through provision to fine the universities millions of pounds more if they did not do as they were told.
	Universities can be fined a further amount if they do not spend all their widening participation money. They can be forced to repay that money with a surcharge. In total, they can be fined millions of pounds if they do not do what the access regulator tells them. The access regulator, remember, is an unreconstructed old Labour class warrior. What conclusions should we and the university sector draw? Is it any wonder that last week I was told by a board member of one of Britain's leading universities that universities will have no choice but to discriminate against applicants from independent schools?
	Then there are the benchmarks that HESA has just produced, criticising 17 universities for not admitting enough state school pupils. The figures show, for example, that Cambridge university should increase the number of state school pupils that it admits from 57 per cent. to 75 per cent. We do not believe we should have a national benchmark telling Cambridge university how many state school students it should admit. My hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) and I have not always seen eye to eye in recent months, but his point about 46 per cent. being an appropriate benchmark was a telling one that the Government should listen to carefully.
	I thought that even the Prime Minister agreed with our proposition. In response to a question from me last year, he said that
	"people should go to university based on their merit, whatever their class or background. That is what should happen."—[Official Report, 26 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 256.]
	He is right, so why is he presiding over a Government who have the express goal of doing the opposite?
	The publication of the benchmarks prompted widespread criticism. Senior figures at Oxford reopened the issue of that university becoming a wholly private institution. The warden of Trinity college told the Government to
	"get its tanks off our lawns".
	The Minister said today that benchmarks are of little importance. He played them down and did not explain why they were mentioned in the original official guidance to the access regulator. Let me press him: will he or the Under-Secretary who winds up the debate give a clear commitment to scrap the benchmarks? Why are they called benchmarks? Referring to statistics is fine, but benchmarks or performance indicators require a purpose.
	No Conservative Member wants bright young students to be deprived of educational opportunities. We want universities to continue their good work to attract students from different backgrounds. However, all the evidence shows that the Government are missing the point with their ill-thought-out policy, which will do damage to the country.
	The problem is not the university admissions system. The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) seemed unaware of that when he spoke of the actions of what he dubbed "the Conservative establishment." Almost all young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds who have good GCSEs go on to higher education. The problem is not post-GCSE attainment but that those young people do not get good exam results initially.

Paul Farrelly: The hon. Gentleman may recall that I was not in total agreement with the Government about variable tuition fees. However, in many communities such as my constituency, fear of debt is a genuine issue, whatever the attainment. How will the Conservative party's imposition of a commercial interest rate on student loans help to provide more fairness and equality of opportunity to get to university?

Chris Grayling: The hon. Gentleman knows that many of those entering university for the first time choose to do that in a local college or university. They suffer from the Government's ill-thought-out policy of imposing tuition fees. People who live at home and some mature students will be clobbered by the Government's fees. Under our scheme, that will not happen: they will leave university without debt. Under the Government's scheme, they will leave with heavy debt.
	If the Government want more young people from lower socio-economic groups to go to university, they must tackle the poverty of aspiration that exists in too many parts of our society. That was well described by my hon. Friends the Members for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) and for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). We need to ensure that fewer young people are trapped in what the Government described as "bog-standard comprehensives". We need to ensure that we have more discipline in schools, that we allow teachers to teach and not only work to maintain order in the classroom. We must look after our schools. That is the route to solving the problem.
	The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) mentioned rising school standards. He should ask himself why, if standards are rising so high, so many universities need to hold remedial classes for students when they arrive, to pick up the pieces in maths, English and foreign languages, in which our schools have failed to do their job.
	A worrying aspect of the debate is the way in which the Government are so hung up on Oxford and Cambridge. They appear to believe that only Oxford and Cambridge matter. Many of our universities are deeply disappointed in the Government's approach. Every university has its strengths, as, to give him credit, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) pointed out. Throughout the country, there are universities with departments that are at the forefront of their subject. To suggest that going to a modern university is bad for students is to do a disservice to all the hard-working teams in modern universities.
	Students in Northumbria university's excellent law school do not view their counterparts up the road in Newcastle with awestruck envy. They believe that their course is better. Students at the sports science department at the university of Hertfordshire mingle with some of the greatest sportsmen and women of our nation. Modern universities are quick to challenge some of the broader assumptions. The third highest performing university in terms of graduate starting salaries is not Oxford or Cambridge but South Bank university. It was proud to point that out to me when I visited it last week. Our modern universities do a first-rate job and we should not talk them down, as the Government seem to do.
	The Government's approach has nothing to do with the interests of this country, helping our universities to excel on the world stage or delivering higher-quality academic achievement. It has everything to do with perpetuating class envy, which, we believed, was part of the Labour party's history. Sadly, it still appears to be present in the Labour party today.
	I spent yesterday afternoon at Old Trafford watching Arsenal's unbeaten run come to an end. Next May, we shall ensure that the Government's unbeaten run comes to an end. When that happens, we shall return some sense to higher education policy. Under the next Conservative Government, students will be judged on merit, ability and potential. We will abolish the access regulator. There will be no more access agreements or fines if universities do not do what the Government tell them.
	Our alternative approach to student funding will scrap fees and cut debt for all students. It will strengthen our universities financially, with no strings attached. We will tackle the real cause of problems in our education system—the standard of education in our primary and secondary schools—by giving teachers more control and parents more choice.

Ivan Lewis: Like my hon. Friend the Minister, I welcome the debate because it shattered some myths that are often repeated and truly exposed the differences between us and the Conservative party on issues that are vital to the character and destiny of our nation.
	The debate matters because it concerns the aspirations, ambitions and anxieties of many young people and their families as they chart their path to the future. As politicians, we should never underestimate how the apparent need for short-term point scoring deeply affects many teenagers who are working hard to gain a place in higher education.
	Several important contributions were made and, in the short time available, I shall try to answer some of them. First, let me deal with the contribution of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). Let us be clear about Conservative funding policy for higher education. As defined by the shadow Chancellor, it is to match the Government's spending on schools. The implication is that there will be cuts in early-years and higher education and in adult skills. Although Conservative Members claim that they would no longer cap the numbers who go into higher education, the funding available to universities would be cut and we would return to the days of the previous Conservative Government.
	The hon. Gentleman spoke of determination to break our unbeaten record. The structural problems that we are discussing today were caused by the unbroken 18 years of Conservative Government, which created the low achievement and low aspirations that are endemic in so many parts of our community.
	Now that Sir Martin Harris declares himself to be an old Labour class warrior, he is unacceptable to the hon. Gentleman, but when he was vice-chancellor of one of the best universities in the country, the hon. Gentleman would have given him autonomy in decision making.

Barry Sheerman: There has been a character assassination of Martin Harris. He is a distinguished academic and a fine university administrator with a great record. Some of his remarks have been taken out of context today, and that has done him and the House a disservice.

Ivan Lewis: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The Conservative party did not make the point that it has made today when Martin Harris was an incredibly successful vice-chancellor at Manchester.

David Rendel: Is it the Under-Secretary's understanding of Conservative policy that total academic freedom over admissions would mean that such a man, if he were an unreconstructed, left-wing Marxist, would be free to allow only those who came from the state sector to go to his university?

Ivan Lewis: That might be one consequence of the Conservative view.
	I stress to the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell that the debate has been bogus in that it presents a false choice between raising standards in early years, schools and colleges of further education—the Government are more committed to raising standards at every stage of a child's development than any previous Government, through financial investment and a clear reform programme—and tackling the problem of endemic, cultural low aspiration in some communities, whereby no one in a school or family has had the opportunity to go to university. That is a false choice. Any responsible Government should address standards and the quality of education in institutions and raise the aspirations of those whom we wish to make best use of the education system.

Tim Collins: If the Under-Secretary accepts our analysis that the problem lies with the schools, why does his policy provide for financial penalties on universities but not schools?

Ivan Lewis: The hon. Gentleman is clearly not listening. I question the standard of education in the school that he attended. To claim that we have to tackle either standards in pre-university institutions or communities where there has been no experience and evidence of higher education is to present a false choice. Surely the responsible policy involves bringing together an undying determination to improve standards—as I have said, from the earliest years until the further-education stage—and an equal determination to tackle the low aspiration and low attainment that have held back too many of our communities for too long.

Chris Grayling: Will the Minister give way?

Ivan Lewis: I will not give way again.
	The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell talked of the virtues of the Conservatives' financial package for the future of higher education, and of a new-found friendship with the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson). What he did not say was that the hon. Member for Wantage had described the Conservatives' proposed package as regressive—and, as a distinguished former higher education Minister, he should know.
	My distinguished colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), the Chairman of the Select Committee, told us about the questions that were asked of him when he went to Norway to talk about relative performance in education. The Norwegians, he said, respected our progress—and we are making progress. We have a long way to go before we achieve the educational performance that the country needs and that we desperately want, but it is in the Conservatives' interests to do nothing but talk down our achievements and the improvements of recent times.
	As my hon. Friend said, the process of applying to university is very complex for many young people and their parents. It is difficult and challenging. Asking universities to engage with young people of 14 or 15 and talk them through that process is an important part of presenting university as a serious option. He also pointed out that universities are diverse institutions. They are indeed, which is why we are not proposing a one-size-fits-all agreement between OFFA and the university sector. We are talking about individual negotiated agreements that are fit for the purposes of individual institutions.
	The hon. Member for Wantage said that admission policies were being supervised by the external regulator. That is simply not true. Access agreements will deal with outreach work, bursaries and the provision of accurate financial information to help students make the right choices. He said that there was a danger that benchmarks would become targets and quotas because of the way in which this is being reported in certain sections of the media. He could have added, "and because of the way in which certain members of my party are presenting this debate and these issues."
	I am always interested in the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor). He spoke of establishment pleasures and privileges being sustained by the Conservatives. I might point out, in an historical context, that establishment pleasures and privileges have sometimes been combined with communist plots in at least one of our top universities—but we need go no further. My hon. Friend also said that pupil funding was almost the only determinant of relative performances of which we should take account. I do not agree. I would expect anyone who had ever represented Bury to accept that, although pupil funding has improved considerably more under this Government than under our predecessor, it is not the only determinant of higher-education achievement.
	The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) referred at one point to the danger of an intellectual Jurassic Park developing on the Labour Benches. His is the party that has just returned the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) to the shadow Cabinet. The Conservatives know all about intellectual Jurassic Parks.
	We heard how much better the education system used to be when we had grammar schools and secondary moderns. Not only is that untrue; it is not as if the Government are seeking simply to perpetuate the status quo in the quality of education available to young people. The move towards foundation specialist schools, the creation of city academies, the emphasis on basics in primary schools, the key stage 3 strategy, our new approach to 14-to-19 policy, education maintenance allowances all constitute a recognition that the status quo is not acceptable. However, I accept his point about schools' responsibility to engage with higher education institutions, as well as vice versa.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) spoke passionately, as he always does, about part-time and adult students and about the importance of tackling poverty of opportunity and creating social justice for all. He was right to focus on the barriers that still face many carers, especially young carers, who want higher education.
	I have considerable respect for the independent and thought-provoking contributions of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) to political debates of all kinds, but especially to education debates. Let me say to him again that, while low prior attainment is the main issue, it is not the sole issue. The idea that state schools are not as good as private schools—and that aspirations and skills, and parents' support for their children, are nothing to do with that—is nonsense. It is equally unacceptable, however, to excuse poor state school performance on the basis of a difficult and challenging home background. That is why we are modernising public services in exactly the way described by the hon. Gentleman, personalising them and putting customers at the heart of what we offer.
	I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), another Member from Bury. He asked whether we would intervene in decisions on admissions if the figures remained the same. We will not, but I can tell him this: I am extremely confident that the figures will not remain the same. The results of tests on seven, 11 and 14-year-olds are improving, and inner-city schools' performance is improving faster than the performance of schools elsewhere. We have introduced education maintenance allowances and relationships have been developed between higher education institutions and local communities in which going to university has not been the cultural norm.
	The tactics deployed by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) and his party—scaremongering about young people not being able to afford to go to university—will be what helps to deter young people, not the Government's financial package. Our package offers income-contingent payback and the reintroduction of maintenance loans. Whatever package of financial support has been available in the past—grants for all, among others—there has been no break at any stage in the link between social class and access to higher education. The answer to the question, "What will the new system mean in terms of that link?" remains to be seen, but I believe that our other reforms will make a significant difference.
	The truth is that neither the Government nor the main Opposition parties favour state interference in determining admissions to higher education, which is properly the responsibility of universities and colleges themselves. That, however, is where the consensus begins and ends.
	The Conservative party stands firmly and proudly in the finest traditions of its past. It believes that higher education should be confined to an unrepresentative socio-economic group, that low aspirations in disadvantaged communities are inevitable and that higher education is for the middle classes, while the working class should be sent on vaguely defined vocational courses.
	When exam results improve and the current generation of teachers is described by Ofsted as the best ever, the Conservatives claim that standards are not what they used to be. Their leader proposes a system whereby a young person who works hard to achieve a high grade will be penalised simply because an arbitrary number—or perhaps even a quota—of students achieve that grade. That is the real quota issue that has developed recently in higher education policy.
	The Conservatives' higher education funding package and their student support proposals are regressive for graduates, and will leave a gaping hole in universities' finances.
	This Government will not interfere in universities' right to determine their own admissions, but we will not betray Britain's interests either. Any country achieving economic success in the 21st-century global economy will have to energise and use the talents of all its people. A civilised and fair society will be real only when individual destiny is no longer determined by postcode, family background or social class. That is the age-old difference that divides the political parties, and I strongly urge the House to reject the Opposition motion this evening because it is designed to promote myths and propagate division and is not an accurate reflection of the Government's policy to improve participation in higher education and ensure wider access.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
	The House divided: Ayes 136, Noes 332.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Question on amendments), and agreed to.
	Madam Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House believes that universities should be solely and wholly in charge of their own admissions policies, a point which was repeatedly made clear during the passage of the Higher Education Act 2004 and is now enshrined in that legislation; notes that the Opposition opposed the passage of that Act; welcomes the annual publication of the higher education performance indicators which enable institutions to reflect on their own position; abhors the recent misinterpretation of those indicators as targets or quotas linked to funding; agrees that admissions to higher education should always be based on merit; further welcomes the recent report from Professor Schwartz on fair admissions to higher education; agrees that it is for institutions themselves to decide how to implement the Schwartz principles; supports the Government's policies to widen participation in higher education and open access for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with the potential to benefit; congratulates the Government and the higher education sector on the steps they are taking to achieve this goal; notes that the most powerful driver of increased participation is to raise standards in schools; commends the new student support arrangements which will make higher education free at the point of use and fair at the point of repayment; further commends the establishment of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) which will result in more financial support for students and more outreach work to boost applications from under-represented groups; and further notes that universities' admissions policies will be outside OFFA's remit.

Wind Farms

Madam Deputy Speaker: I inform hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister and has imposed a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. Hon. Members who are not staying for this debate should leave the Chamber as quickly and quietly as possible.

Tim Yeo: I beg to move,
	That this House recognises that climate change is a major challenge for the twenty-first century and that renewable energy can help to cut carbon dioxide emissions; regrets the fact that renewable energy supplies only 2.7 per cent. of Britain's energy needs; deplores the Government's policy of relying exclusively on onshore wind farms to meet its renewable energy targets; condemns changes to the planning system which may lead to the construction of wind farms in inappropriate places against the wishes of local communities; and urges the Government to develop a wider mix of renewable energy technologies including hydro, off-shore wind, wave, tidal, solar, and bio-fuels and bio mass, combined heat and power, microgeneration, and energy efficiency.
	I am delighted that the Conservative party has been able to devote half its Opposition day today, at the start of energy efficiency week, to this vital subject. In the next few minutes, I intend to expose the serious flaws in the Government's policy on renewable energy and to set out the Conservative party's approach. The alluring task of analysing the inconsistencies in the Liberal Democrat position I will reluctantly leave to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray). I envy him that chance, and as a trailer for his excellent winding-up speech later this evening, let me simply say that the muddle that the Liberal Democrats are in on this issue is at least as hilarious as it is on many others—hilarious if it was not such a disgrace. I will examine the Government's approach to renewable energy and wind farms in particular in the context of the international debate on climate change and the Government's overall energy policy.
	On climate change, I am very happy to confirm that the Conservative party accepts the scientific evidence both that the climate is changing and that it is highly probable that one of the causes of that change is human activity. Indeed, I am proud that a Conservative Prime Minister—Baroness Thatcher—was the first Head of Government of any major country in the world to take the threat of climate change seriously. My own close interest in the subject began when I was a Minister of State at the Department of the Environment in 1993, with responsibility for environmental issues. Since then, the scientific evidence has become more compelling. I commend the Government on their role in helping to secure the Kyoto agreement, but it is very worrying that, after seven years of Labour Government, carbon dioxide emissions in Britain are rising, not falling.

Robert Key: Does my hon. Friend welcome the fact that a large number of the environmental leaders who, when he was a Minister of State, condemned the then Conservative Government for their attitude have now recognised that the Kyoto targets are unattainable, particularly in this country, without the use of nuclear energy?

Tim Yeo: My hon. Friend makes an important point about the fact that, on present Government policy, it is extremely unlikely that Britain will honour its commitments under the Kyoto treaty. The targets that the Government have set will not be achieved without a significant and urgent change in their policy—that, of course, includes energy policy.

Paddy Tipping: Will the hon. Gentleman say precisely what the Conservative party's policy on nuclear generation is? Does he propose that new stations be built and, if so, over what time scale and by whom?

Tim Yeo: I will set aside the hon. Gentleman's cheek in posing a question that his Prime Minister has refused to answer for the past seven and a half years; we are no nearer to having any clue as to what the Government's approach is to this vital issue, even though they have been in charge for all that time. They have access to all the information and, quite apart from our environmental commitments, the decision about how to achieve security of energy supply in Britain is urgent, as I shall set out.
	However, the hon. Gentleman makes a fair request, and I am happy to accede to it. It is clear that nuclear power scores in terms of climate change because there are no carbon dioxide emissions. That is a huge plus point for nuclear power. I have listened with interest to the debates between the proponents and the opponents of nuclear power. It is up to its proponents, who are quite vociferous, to make the case, and in particular to address two legitimate concerns—first, the environmental concern about the waste issue, and, secondly, whether on strict financial criteria nuclear power is economically viable. If the proponents could address those two concerns to my satisfaction, I would have no other anxieties about nuclear power.
	It seems likely that the Prime Minister will continue to duck this decision. If I were to have any role in taking the decision within the first year of a Conservative Government, I would make sure that we had a time-limited review so that people knew that that first year was the period during which they had to make the case for nuclear power.

Gillian Shephard: My hon. Friend has pointed out the Prime Minister's reluctance to put his cards on the table with regard to the Government's policy on nuclear energy. Does he agree that there is a similar reluctance on the part of the Chancellor to put his cards on the table with regard to encouraging biofuels, and does he think that that is regrettable?

Tim Yeo: My right hon. Friend anticipates a point that I shall come on to shortly. She is right that biofuels could make an important contribution to tackling climate change, but they are currently handicapped in doing so by the timid approach that the Government have adopted. They have given a small duty cut, but that is not enough to kick-start the market for biofuels.
	There is a problem of critical mass with all such alternatives. It is no good having an alternative that accounts for 0.1 per cent. of the market. To get a market going, there has to be a sufficient mass of activity, and in the case of biofuels that momentum will be created—with a lot of other advantages, which I shall mention shortly—only if the Government are a lot bolder in their approach to cutting duty rates.

John Robertson: The hon. Gentleman has attacked the Prime Minister on where he stands—or, in this case, does not stand. Where does the hon. Gentleman stand on the figures and targets that the Government have set? Would he back them up, and if so, how would he do that?

Tim Yeo: That is a helpful intervention; I was about to come on to that point. There are many other issues on which I would attack the Prime Minister but, unfortunately, you might consider them outside the remit of this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	The Conservative party endorses not only the Kyoto targets, but the more demanding ones that the Government have set for Britain. However, it would be helpful if we did not jump from a target that is 10 or 15 years hence to one for 2050; a series of intermediate steps would make the very long-term targets more credible, but that may be a point of detail.
	What is clear is that none of these targets will be achieved unless policy is changed, and not just policy on renewable energy. Transport policy must be changed and energy efficiency must be given much greater priority, to mention just a couple of the important areas where far more urgency is needed. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) highlighted that last month in a powerful and wide-ranging speech on this subject.

Norman Baker: On 5 October, addressing the Conservative party conference, the hon. Gentleman said:
	"To tackle congestion, I'll expand the road network."
	Did he anticipate that that would lead to a reduction in carbon emissions?

Tim Yeo: If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to read the rest of my speech to the Conservative party conference, he would know that the answer to his question is yes. Technology opens the door for us to allow people to use their cars as they wish. The car has hugely enhanced people's lives in the last century, and we want people to be free to use their cars. We will not have a transport policy that is predicated on an attempt to get them out of the car, but we will encourage cleaner cars, such as more fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel cars. In that way, we can get the best of both worlds.
	I hope that when the hon. Gentleman speaks in this debate he will clarify his position on the decision of Lewes district council to ban solar power in the town, despite the fact that it was particularly badly affected by flooding. It might be the case that in the minds of the hon. Gentleman and his Liberal Democrat colleagues there is no connection between violent floods and climate change, but it would enlighten the House, and possibly amuse it, if the hon. Gentleman were to clarify his position on that.

Norman Baker: Lewes district council did not ban solar power or any other renewable source. Indeed, evidence from planning applications demonstrates that the council has granted 13 out of 18 applications for solar panels in the last four years. Having heard the facts, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his allegation, which he continues to make.

Tim Yeo: I am happy to repeat the allegation: there is a conservation area in Lewes in which the council's policy is to ban solar power.
	Let me move on to a wider scale. It is not only Britain that needs to change policy if we are to tackle successfully the challenge of climate change. The United States of America needs to change even more. One of the blackest marks on the Prime Minister's record is his complete failure to use his influence with President Bush to try to get the US to ratify the Kyoto treaty. Without United States involvement, the Kyoto process is seriously, and possibly fatally, weakened. Nobody will take the Prime Minister's claim to be concerned about climate change seriously until there is evidence that he personally has used his uniquely advantageous position to win a change in the United States' approach.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Before the hon. Gentleman too rapidly escapes from transport, would he like to make clear the Conservative party's attitude towards aviation? Does it intend to apply extra taxes? It talks about renewable energy; is there an attitude towards the use of fuels in general?

Tim Yeo: We have now developed a detailed policy on road transport, but I recognise that aviation is an even faster growing source of carbon dioxide emissions, and the absence of tax on aviation fuel creates an unlevel playing field in terms of transport choices. Therefore, between now and next spring, I intend to add more detail to our response on aviation.
	I hope that the Government also accept that a failure to address the fast-growing source of emissions that aviation constitutes is yet another gaping hole in their strategy towards climate change.

Gregory Barker: As and when it comes, the policy that my hon. Friend announces will be greatly welcomed not only by Conservative Members but by many people in the environmental lobby, because the Government's record on aviation is disgraceful. We hear nothing from the Ministers with responsibility for it, and what we do hear is lamentably unambitious; they have no vision and no plan.

Tim Yeo: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's encouragement, although I am unsure whether it is universally shared by Conservative Members. He is rightly known to be one of the most committed environmentalists in Parliament, and I am delighted that he is here to be supportive today.
	Returning to Britain, energy policy is a key factor that will determine how successful we are at tackling climate change. The Government's White Paper on energy was a chance for them to set out a coherent approach to this problem; sadly, it signally failed to do so. Government energy policy should have two overriding aims. First, it must ensure security of supply. Secondly, it must enable Britain to honour its environmental commitments. The White Paper implied, wholly misleadingly, that both aims could be achieved without any effect on electricity prices. That was dishonest. The truth is that if we are to have secure energy supplies and meet our environment goals, prices will rise. That throws up the additional challenge of how to deal with the problem of fuel poverty; however, the way to tackle that is not through energy policy, but through greater investment in energy efficiency and through the benefits system.

Brian Wilson: I agree with quite a lot of what the hon. Gentleman has said. The point he is leading to now is extremely topical because of the sharp rise in gas prices. Does he agree with me that, to a large extent, the key is to have an energy policy that is based much more strongly on indigenous energy sources? We should not be talking about renewables versus nuclear versus clean coal; we should be talking about the role of all three, which will lead to a diminution in our future dependence on imported gas.

Tim Yeo: I greatly regret the right hon. Gentleman's absence from the Treasury Bench. I recall his contribution to previous energy debates with much pleasure and a good deal of respect, and it is a shame that he is no longer a force for good sense in the Government, especially in their approach to energy policy. His point is well made, and I intend to address the subject he raises.
	The White Paper seriously underestimated the probability of interruptions to supply, not just decades from now, but in the next few years. Given the damage that even brown-outs inflict on the economy and the hideous disruption to business and domestic life that any power cut causes, the White Paper's underestimate could have devastating consequences for Britain. Our infrastructure is already creaking, and our dependence on gas imports is increasing alarmingly, especially given the source of those imports and the limited number of entry points. I am indebted to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, whose latest paper, No. 230, published this month, confirms the worrying position. It states:
	"By 2010, it is estimated that the UK will be 50 per cent. dependent on imported gas, rising to 80 per cent. by 2020".
	It continues:
	"estimates suggest that the minimum share of gas in electricity generation will rise to 46 per cent by 2012 and some analysts suggest that this figure could be as high as over 60 per cent."
	About a quarter of our electricity needs might soon be wholly dependent on imported gas. Remember that at present gas is imported into the United Kingdom through just two pipelines: the Bacton interconnector in Norfolk and the pipeline from Norway that enters through St. Fergus in Scotland. I do not need to spell out the vulnerability of that arrangement in today's world. It is not as though our gas storage capacity provides any protection—indeed, as POST notes,
	"many European countries . . . have large strategic storage capacities, of up to 80 days' on average compared to 13 days for the UK."
	Never before have we relied on imports for more than a quarter of our natural gas needs. No wonder the POST note contains a concluding warning:
	"The shift from domestic gas surplus to import dependency may leave the UK more vulnerable to supply interruptions and gas price fluctuations".

David Chaytor: The hon. Gentleman's comments about security and imports are pertinent, but does he not accept that they apply equally to nuclear power? To the best of my knowledge, there is no uranium mine in the UK.

Tim Yeo: There are a great many more than two potential suppliers of uranium, which can be imported in a variety of ways and is not confined to two highly vulnerable pipelines. However, any form of energy is to some extent at risk from a variety of threats, of which terrorism is only one. That is why it is so crass of the present Government in terms of renewable energy to put all their eggs in one basket, and in terms of fossil fuels to become so vulnerable and wholly dependent on imported gas.

Mark Tami: The hon. Gentleman talks about a lot of problems that we might face, but does he agree that many of them are a result of the way in which the industry was privatised by the Conservative Government?

Tim Yeo: No, I do not accept that.
	The truth is that Ministers are playing fast and loose with our future energy supply needs. They are banking on the chance that the damage that their reckless approach will cause will not occur until they have moved on to new pastures. Amazingly, their approach to renewables does nothing to deal with the problems of security that I have described.
	The White Paper set extremely challenging targets for the proportion of Britain's energy that was to be derived from renewable sources, even though in their first three years in office the Labour Government failed to meet the renewable energy target for 2000 that was set by the previous Government. The Conservatives believe that it is crucial that Britain produce more energy from renewable sources. We believe that for environmental reasons, as well as for the reasons relating to security of supply that I have just outlined. Precisely because we believe that so strongly, we are horrified by Labour's approach to renewables, which can be summed up as onshore wind, and nothing else, and which involves forcing local communities throughout Britain to accept onshore wind farms, regardless of how damaging their environmental impact may be on the neighbourhood.

Edward Leigh: My concern is the fly-by-night, paper nature of many of the companies, which simply spatter applications all over the countryside and sell on planning permissions, churning up a great deal of angst in local communities. Should we not take a more co-ordinated approach, perhaps via public inquiries? We have to accept that an honest debate is needed and that we can never meet all our needs from wind farms without ruining the environment. We have to accept the nuclear option.

Tim Yeo: I am certainly in favour of an honest debate. I know that my hon. Friend will make a wise and positive contribution to such a debate, if we are allowed to have it.
	Of all the available renewable energy technologies, onshore wind is the least reliable and therefore the least suitable for a country where security of supply is an urgent issue. The problem of intermittency is real: consumers who use electricity generated by onshore wind need an alternative and reliable source of power for those days when the wind does not blow—and, indeed, for those days when it blows too hard. Our second objection to the technology is that the siting of an onshore wind farm has a major, often negative, environmental impact on the area—visually and in terms of noise, and sometimes in terms of the consequences for wildlife. It is almost beyond belief that on an island, with all the potential that that offers for offshore wind, tidal and wave power, and in a country where, partly through the Government's own blunders, agriculture is struggling and farmers would benefit from new crops, almost all the Government's support for renewable energy is targeted at onshore wind. Sadly, however, that is the effect of the present operation of the renewables obligation.
	If Britain exploited its natural advantages in offshore technologies, we might become a world leader, with all the commercial benefits that that could bring. If we offered users of biodiesel and bioethanol more favourable rates of duty, as advocated by my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), demand would grow. As the market would be a new one, it is doubtful that even the Treasury would lose, because a cut in the rate of duty really could lead to an increase in the yield, so that revenue would grow, not fall. Microgeneration is another way in which we can increase the use of renewables, but if the potential contribution from that source is to be fully realised, changes are needed to the way in which the transmission and distribution networks are funded.
	Another of our concerns centres on the way in which onshore wind farms are being imposed on local communities and in unsuitable places, despite strong local opposition, which is often based on sound environmental grounds. This might be the right moment to make it crystal clear that the Conservative party is neither opposed in principle to onshore wind farms, nor opposed in practice to every proposal for an onshore wind farm. We believe that onshore wind will have a role to play—but as part of a mix of renewable energy sources. Individually, wind farms must be situated in places where there is a reasonable degree of acceptance by the local community. At present, a worryingly large number of proposals fail that test. The result is that the case for renewable energy itself is starting to get a bad name in some places.

Bob Blizzard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Yeo: No. I am sorry.
	Take the case of the Vale of White Horse in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson). There is a proposal near Watchfield, where local people are opposed to the erection of five turbines almost 100 m high. They are lucky to have Ed Veizey to champion their cause locally. Planning policy statement 22 requests local authorities to set their own criteria for the minimum separation distances between different types of renewable energy projects and existing developments.
	When the Minister responds, will he say in general terms what he believes is acceptable in terms of minimum distances? In the Vale of White Horse, there is a facility nearby for autistic children, who might be disturbed by the noise, the strobing and the low frequency sound produced by the turbines.
	Moving further west, I am advised by Ashley Gray, an effective campaigner who is working to protect the landscape, and by Mrs. Caroline Jackson MEP, that planning applications threaten a number of landscapes in the west country. Going north, in Rossendale and Darwen, on Scout moor, an area of outstanding national beauty, there is another application for 26 turbines, 100 m high, with a footprint of more than 130,000 sq m. Eight miles of road will have to be built on the moor for this project, which will create a total of just four jobs. I am glad that Nigel Adams is fighting the cause.

Peter Ainsworth: If I may say so, my hon. Friend is making a compelling speech. I hesitate to draw him back to the choppy waters of nuclear energy. As he has not altogether ruled out nuclear energy as a possibility and he is talking about a mix, what sort of local resistance does he anticipate facing in the event of wanting to build new nuclear power stations all over the countryside? Is he concerned not only about costs and waste but with the issue of safety?

Tim Yeo: My hon. Friend, who performs a distinguished role as Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee and who has contributed to these debates on a number of occasions, raises an important point. As it happens, I think that the most recent nuclear power station to be built in this country was at Sizewell, in the constituency next door to mine. I am quite familiar with the current debate. I represented south Thurrock when that debate was taking place. I am aware of the concerns that my hon. Friend suggests may be raised. Indeed, they will be. I have no doubt that if a proposal for a new nuclear power station was to come forward in any constituency, there would be a considerable local debate and a lot of controversy.
	In the case of Sizewell, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), I and others were able, I think, to allay the concerns that were expressed. The power station has operated perfectly satisfactorily with benefit to the local economy, and so on. It would take some time to meet concerns. Issues about the environment and the cost would have to be addressed, and I would need to be convinced. Rightly, my hon. Friend also raises the issue of safety. I recognise that that would be a bigger and perhaps more controversial issue than even a wind farm. Nevertheless, I hope that in the end local people would see the issue on its merits and that the outcome would be a rational one, but it is not for me to prejudge what may or may not happen.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Tim Yeo: No, I will not give way. I have already been speaking for nearly half an hour. I wish to mention some other urgent local issues.
	In north Devon, Orlando Fraser has told me about the concerns of local people over the planning application for Fullebrook Down for 22 turbines each more than 360 ft tall. Later this week I shall be visiting Herefordshire, where my good friend Virginia Taylor will explain to me the work of the friends of the Golden Valley group, who are fighting—I am glad to say that they are doing so successfully, so far—against a huge and wholly inappropriate wind farm. There are many other applications that I could mention. For example, there are the proposals for Romney Marsh, which are being opposed by no less a person than my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), the Leader of the Opposition. There is a proposal for a wind farm near the A14 at Boxworth in South Cambridgeshire. It is opposed by my hon. Friends the Members for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley).
	In each of these cases local opinion faces the prospect of being ignored by Ministers. The residents in each of the places that I have mentioned, and in other places similarly threatened, will be looking carefully at what the Minister says this evening. If, as I suspect, they will find little to comfort them, I am happy to take this chance to make it clear that the next Conservative Government will withdraw PPS 22 and will replace it with planning guidance that strengthens rather than weakens the role of local authorities in determining the siting of renewable energy projects.

Keith Simpson: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Tim Yeo: No, I am sorry. I am reaching the end of my remarks.
	I believe that most people recognise that we need more renewable energy in Britain. I believe also that there are some communities that will welcome wind farms in their area. However, I am convinced that the Government's present approach is the worst of all possible worlds. Unless there is an immediate change of policy, Britain's energy supplies will become less secure, not more secure, because of the Government's renewable energy strategy. Britain will throw away the chance to become a world leader in renewable energy technology other than onshore. Britain's farmers will be denied the chance to grow a valuable new crop. Our countryside will be littered with inappropriately sited wind farms. Instead of communities that are proud to play their part in the battle against climate change, we will have groups that resent the imposition by Ministers in Whitehall of damaging developments on their doorstep.
	That prospect faces Britain under Labour, and because of it I commend the motion to the House.

Mike O'Brien: I beg to move, To leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"recognises the passing of the Energy Act 2004 and the positive actions taken by the Government to increase the amount of energy supplied from renewable sources; welcomes the global leadership shown by the Government on climate change and commends actions taken to meet the UK's Kyoto targets; condemns the Official Opposition for opposing the development of renewables while claiming to support them in principle; notes the abject failure of the Official Opposition to provide coherent policy proposals to meet the climate change challenge and its continued opposition to the Climate Change Levy; praises the Government for providing significant resources and support to the development of wind energy, including £117 million for the development of offshore wind energy; further notes that a growing proportion of wind farm developments will occur offshore; supports steps taken by the Government to promote energy efficiency and notes with approval that the planning regime allows for wind farm proposals to be thoroughly considered in terms of their impacts on local communities and environments and their contributions to national energy needs and policies; commends the Government's commitment to diversifying the sources of the UK's energy supply and the related investment in a wide range of renewable technologies including energy crops, £60 million investment for biomass, £31 million towards photovoltaics and £50 million for wave and tidal; and further condemns the Official Opposition's energy policy that would drastically reduce the UK's investment in renewable technologies."
	The Conservative attitude to the renewables debate is opportunist, incoherent and fundamentally dishonest. It is opportunist because it seeks to play on the fears of a small number of communities in marginal constituencies that have particular concerns about onshore wind farms. At one stage the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) listed threats to the country. It is incoherent because the Conservative attitude hints at support for emissions reductions and renewables and then refuses to support the difficult decisions that are required to achieve these things through onshore wind energy. The Conservative policy is dishonest because it claims to the public that investments in offshore wind farms and other renewables can deliver on renewables by 2010 when reputable scientists know that they will not.
	Today, we witnessed the Conservative party in full pre-election mode, playing political games for votes and promising two mutually undeliverable things: the emissions and renewable targets will all be met and communities will have a complete veto over onshore wind farms. These energy issues, which are serious and relate to the future of our country and that of the wider world, should be treated with far more seriousness than the political knockabout that we saw from the Conservatives today. The politics of the short term, the cynical and the expedient that determines Conservative policy shows that the Conservatives are not a serious Opposition.

Gregory Barker: Does the Minister realise that it is he who is living in cloud-cuckoo land when he thinks that it is just local communities that are worried about the proliferation of large-scale wind farms? The proposal for Romney Marsh, for example, near my constituency, has upset local residents and anyone who is concerned with the preservation of wild birds, particularly those that have only a small amount of nesting ground. That is an issue that concerns far more people than just local residents. By ploughing ahead with the proposal, the Minister risks discrediting the whole renewable agenda.

Mike O'Brien: On this business of Romney Marsh, it seems that national Conservative party policy has been decided by a local planning application in the Folkestone constituency of the Leader of the Opposition. Does that reflect concerns about the national interest? No. There are concerns about Romney Marsh, and I do not dispute that it is an important place, but the whole of Britain's energy policy should not be determined by one local area.
	I shall now set out the seriousness of the problems facing us and the reasons why some difficult decisions need to be made and why this Government, unlike the Conservatives, are prepared to make them. The hon. Member for South Suffolk referred to specific projects, but the House will know that Ministers cannot comment on a specific project that may be in the planning process, and that Ministers may have to consider in the future.

Gregory Barker: rose—

Mike O'Brien: I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman, but I shall do so again because I have mentioned an area near his constituency.

Gregory Barker: It is extraordinary that the Minister has castigated an Opposition Front Bencher for mentioning planning cases. He has just spoken very clearly about the Romney Marsh project, which is three weeks into a five-week public inquiry. How does he square that? Is not what the Minister has just said about Romney Marsh blatant political interference in a public planning inquiry?

Mike O'Brien: Absolutely not; I have in no way prejudged anything to do with Romney Marsh—my point concerned the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition. It is in no one's interest to put wind farms in the wrong locations. That is why the Government insist that all renewable energy projects must be considered as part of a formal planning process that gives people the right to express their views and have them taken into consideration.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Can I take it that that also applies to offshore wind farms and the interests of the fishing community, particularly in Morecambe bay, where the lines that inshore fishermen would have to follow present real problems?

Mike O'Brien: I want to ensure that the fishermen can make their views felt when an offshore application occurs. We have not only listened to the views expressed by fishermen on the general issue of offshore wind farms—some fishing communities oppose them—but set up studies to examine the problems raised by those fishermen to ensure that we address the serious points.

Paddy Tipping: Will the Minister draw a clear distinction between the Government's policy of listening to people's views and the Opposition's policy, which is clear, of rejecting either wind power or nuclear power if the opposition is vociferous? That is a crazy way in which to run energy policy.

Mike O'Brien: My point is that the Conservative Opposition have not got a serious energy policy.
	On planning inquiries, we want the impact on the environment, the local community, the landscape and the country's energy needs to be weighed fairly and fully in the balance. We should balance local and national interests, because everyone has a vested interest in reducing emissions that damage our environment and possibly our health, in improving the security of energy supplies and in examining the impact that blocking onshore wind farms may have on our prospects of dealing with energy problems. That is why local planning authorities handle all proposed developments that would generate less than 50 MW. Under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989, which the Conservative party introduced, proposed developments generating more than 50 MW or 1 MW offshore are dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
	Planning guidelines for local authorities are contained within PPS22, which was updated in August. It is wrong to say that PPS22 has made it harder for members of the public to have their say about new wind developments. Indeed, the objective of the exercise is to let local people have their say, while ensuring that decisions are made expeditiously and fairly bearing in mind the need to reduce energy emissions, which Conservative Members seem to recognise. PPS22 enables local people to have their rightful and democratic say within the checks and balances of the planning system. We also want to recognise the national element and ensure that the national planning inspectorate, which conducts inquiries, considers both local and national needs.

Edward Leigh: The Minister's speech sounds reasonable, but he must understand that local authorities suspect that they are wasting their time by turning down such applications, because the inspector's final decision is based not on local planning conditions, but meeting our obligations under the Kyoto protocol. Will he make a firm commitment to my local authority and the others represented here that his inspectors will decide those issues on what is best for the local environment, which is what the planning process is all about?

Mike O'Brien: The planning process is all about ensuring that the right balance is struck. The Conservative party wants to give a local veto to local people on any planning application for an onshore wind farm, but the national interest must also be weighed in the balance, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we updated the planning guidance in August to achieve the correct balance. We gave full weight to local people's interests and gave local people the right to have their say in the planning process. We also weighed the need to examine local people's interests as well as the wider national interest in ensuring the development of renewables. Updating the planning system was all about getting the balance right.

David Heath: The Minister has described a passive process, but some hon. Members feel that the need to develop some renewables is more urgent. Will he address smaller scale water turbine development, which is a runner in my constituency? It uses old mills, but the Government have provided very little encouragement.

Mike O'Brien: We need to support small-scale hydro projects. I hope that some of the various grant schemes that we have introduced will enable such projects to find funding to provide the extra assistance that they need to develop. Some of those schemes—particularly micro-generation schemes—could well be the means by which many of us obtain our energy in 10 or 20 years' time. Local micro-generation will become much more important, and I want to see its development.

David Drew: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems of ruling out local initiatives or the nuclear option is that one must then examine other large renewable options? One such option, which is very close to my heart, is the Severn barrage, which I have always opposed because of the environmental damage that it would do to the Severn estuary. If we do not grasp that we need power from different sources, we will not argue about the Severn barrage, because it will be imposed on us. Will my hon. Friend say that we must examine local initiatives?

Mike O'Brien: Yes; I am happy to say that we must examine a range of diverse energy sources. In the long term, I want to see the growth of local projects, micro-generation, solar schemes and windmill schemes. I recently examined a windmill project in which the windmills are no larger than satellite dishes and can be put on top of roofs, and we must be prepared to examine such schemes in order to deal with energy in the future.

Chris Mole: Does my hon. Friend agree that businesses such as Your Energy, which is involved in 25 per cent. of applications for onshore wind farms, depend on certainty in the planning regime? Threats to withdraw PPS22 undermine the commercial decisions that such businesses must make to obtain the investment that will allow us to move forward as a leader in such technology.

Mike O'Brien: My hon. Friend is right. What the Leader of the Opposition said the other day and what Conservative Members have said today has put doubt in the minds of many companies across this country on the question whether sufficient support for the development of alternatives and renewables will exist in the future. The Conservative party cannot be trusted on that issue, and its opportunistic policy will put doubts in the minds of many companies.
	The Prime Minister made it clear that climate change is the world's greatest environmental challenge. Burning fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases and carbon emissions, which can raise the earth's temperature. That could lead to changes in temperature patterns, which could mean an increase in droughts, which affect crop yields, tornadoes, flooding and the extinction of some vulnerable species of wildlife.
	Energy demand in the UK and across the world is rising, while the availability of fossil fuels is expected to decline in the long term. The issues are serious, and all Governments must respond to them with long-term solutions. We must develop sustainable, secure and diverse supplies of energy for the future. The UK has set a target to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050.
	There is no single means of delivering that target. Better energy efficiency is crucial but insufficient in itself. Green energy—renewable generation—has a key role to play. It can contribute towards secure energy supplies, create new investment and bring new jobs. The UK has set a demanding target for 10 per cent. of our electricity generation to be supplied from renewable energy by 2010. In 1997, renewables contributed 0.7 per cent. of our electricity. That has been tripled by Labour, but there is still a long way to go to hit our target of 10 per cent.

Richard Ottaway: Will the Minister give way?

Mike O'Brien: No; I have been generous, and I will not give way again.
	To achieve that target, we need to make use of all renewable sources. We expect 7 or 8 per cent. of the 10 per cent. generation to come from wind energy. Other technologies will be hard pushed to produce the rest. The suggestion that other energy sources can hit the target by themselves is plain fantasy. Roughly half the 7 to 8 per cent. will come from onshore wind generation and half from offshore wind generation. Today, renewable electricity, mainly from wind farms, supplies enough electricity to light up Manchester. In theory, up to 2 million homes could be lit from wind power. But the plain fact is that without a substantial increase in onshore wind developments, the 10 per cent. target is unachievable. The Conservatives profess support for renewables but seek to introduce policies that would prevent their use. Their proposal to give a local veto on all wind farm developments is simply not credible to anyone who is serious about our renewables targets.
	We are not focused on onshore wind farms to the exclusion of other energy sources—the UK has a vast potential renewable source, and we want to take forward a wide range of renewable technologies—but wind energy currently offers the best, the most cost-effective and the only truly serious potential for expansion in the short to medium term.

Robert Key: Only this month, the Government chief scientist said that if we are to combat climate change and meet Kyoto, decisions on future nuclear build must be made within five years. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has said that those decisions do not need to be made for 20 or 30 years. What is the Minister's position?

Mike O'Brien: That is a very good and carefully modulated question—I like it. As I have managed to discuss the issue with both people, I suspect that the hon. Gentleman may want to reconsider his remarks.
	We have not ruled out the nuclear option. Nuclear energy is not commercially attractive at the moment, and no companies are coming forward with propositions for such developments. If they did so in future, we would consider them. However, before going ahead with any nuclear programme we would have to produce a White Paper on nuclear energy and to consider all the issues, including those related to nuclear waste. We would also want to ensure full and widespread public consultation.

Bob Blizzard: If we want to make progress towards a 60 per cent. reduction in CO 2 emissions beyond what we will achieve through the 20 per cent. renewables target and energy saving policies, another alternative to the nuclear option is carbon sequestration. Will my hon. Friend assure the House that the Government are considering that as well as what the nuclear industry can offer?

Mike O'Brien: Yes, I do want to consider carbon sequestration, which I have discussed with my hon. Friend before. I shall ask officials to provide me with full reports on that possibility, which we need to explore.
	Our main mechanism to bring forward renewable generation is the renewables obligation. As a market-based measure, the obligation favours the more cost-effective forms of renewables, particularly wind. I am well aware that there are well-organised and vocal anti-wind farm campaigns. However, recent surveys have shown that 67 per cent. of people favour an expansion of renewables, including wind farms. What was particularly fascinating about those surveys was that people who lived near wind farms tended to be more supportive than those who did not. The figure for support went up to 80 per cent. for those who lived within 5 km of a wind farm. It remains to be seen whether those results are borne out by other surveys, but it does suggest that those who know the facts about living with wind farms do not accept the misconceptions. Those facing the prospect of wind farms in their area may well have concerns, and it is right to address them; it is not right, however, to stir them up for short-term political advantage.

James Gray: Does the Minister agree that if those polls are correct, and local people in areas where wind farms are proposed are as much in favour as he suggests, there will be no problem whatsoever in allowing them the final say on whether they have them?

Mike O'Brien: The short-term political advantage that the hon. Gentleman is hoping to garner may turn out not to be as great as he thinks. As I said—obviously he was not listening—where applications are being made people may have concerns, which are sometimes no doubt stirred up by Conservative MPs for short-term political advantage. It is worth noting, however, that where wind farms are already in place, the figures that we have seen suggest that most people like them—80 per cent. do, and 20 per cent. do not.
	We need to ensure that we develop other technologies. The Government are not only supporting onshore wind energy—we have also made funding available to bring forward emerging technologies with the potential to make a contribution in the longer term. We have announced more than £0.5 billion pounds of support for emerging technologies since 2002. That includes £117 million for offshore wind energy. The potential exists for the UK to be a world leader in the field of offshore wind energy. Last year was a record year for onshore wind energy, with eight offshore consents being approved. We expect all the currently consented sites to be built by 2010. Proposals have been accepted for 15 sites, which, taken together, could supply up to 7 per cent. of our electricity. The second round of onshore programmes paves the way for the biggest expansion of renewable energy yet seen. Perhaps 3.5 per cent. of that will come on stream by 2010.

Richard Ottaway: Will the Minister give way?

Mike O'Brien: I have been generous. If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I have a bit more to say and do not want to take as long as his Front-Bench spokesman.
	The Government are also providing support of the order of £100 million for bioenergy. That support benefits facilities ranging from 40 MW power stations to household micro-generation schemes. Earlier this month, the Government announced a new biomass taskforce to stimulate biomass supply and demand. It is to be led by Sir Ben Gill, the former president of the National Farmers Union.
	Wave energy and tidal stream technology have the potential to supply a significant proportion of our energy needs. Those technologies are still at the pre-commercial prototype phase, but the UK is currently a world leader in their development. In August, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry announced the £50 million marine renewables deployment fund to help speed the commercialisation of wave and tidal power.
	Last month, I announced that schools, houses and commercial buildings will benefit from £8.5 million of extra new funding to encourage more energy production from solar panels and small-scale renewables. That brings the Government's commitment to solar photovoltaic—PV—to £31 million since 2002. It also increases support for the use of small-scale renewables in households and communities through the £12.5 million clear skies programme and its Scottish equivalent.
	We are also developing a broad-based strategy on micro-generation that goes out to consultation next year. There are many potential jobs here, with 8,000 jobs in renewables so far and 35,000 likely in future. For example, Romag, a company from Leadgate, provides the public screens here in the Chamber and PV solar tiles for people's homes.
	I have gone through a list of the funding that we are providing, yet the last Conservative Government cut support to the renewables industry to the bone in order to fund their tax cuts. The Conservatives have made it clear that they want more tax cuts. Will they commit themselves to matching Labour's funding of renewables budgets? Will they forgo tax cuts to keep up the programme of investment if they ever come into office? I very much doubt it.
	The Government have taken positive steps to expand renewables, but the Conservatives cut funding. The Government have provided national leadership on renewables, but the Conservatives have played nimby politics. The Government have put in place action to meet the Kyoto targets—and we will meet them—but although the Conservatives claim to support renewables in principle, they oppose key elements of the way in which we will meet the targets in practice. The climate change levy funds renewables research, but the Conservatives would take away such funding by removing the levy. The Government have put £117 million into offshore wind energy, but the Conservatives have given no commitment to new funding. The Government have put in place a planning process that gives local people the right to have their say and also allows the national interest on renewables to be heard, but the Conservatives ignore the national interest on energy. The Government have committed funding to renewables—£60 million for biomass, £31 million for photovoltaic and £50 million for wave and tidal power—but the Conservatives cut research funding in the past and would do so in the future to pay for tax cuts.
	Onshore wind farms are an essential part of renewables and any party that fails to appreciate that cannot claim to be taken seriously as a party of national government. I say to the hon. Member for South Suffolk, in the immortal words of John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious".

Norman Baker: I was looking forward to participating in a debate on climate change during the Conservatives' Opposition day last Monday. Unfortunately, the debate was pulled, but I expected it to be reinstated this week. Instead of a debate about the serious issue of climate change, however, we are having a debate that represents an attack on wind farms, although they are one of the ways in which climate change may be tackled. In the period of eight days, the Conservatives have displayed inconsistency and opportunism.

Richard Ottaway: When last week's debate was announced, the hon. Gentleman issued a press release that accused the Conservatives of tarmacking over Britain. May I remind him that the Liberal Democrats supported the dualling of the A11 and the A120 and the widening of the A27? They also championed the construction of the Newbury and Batheaston bypasses. Does that not—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I fail to see the relevance of that point to the present debate.

Norman Baker: Your view on that point is echoed throughout the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	To be fair, we are having a debate of sorts on the environment today, and at least the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) is in the Chamber, unlike his opposite number. The Secretary of State is scrupulously absent, as she always is when we have environment debates in the House. I am not sure which country she is in tonight, but I hope that she will do us the honour of turning up to the House of Commons occasionally.
	We need a consensus on climate change, but I am afraid that both the Conservative motion and the Government amendment are motivated more by rubbishing the other side than by suggesting a sensible way forward. The motion seemed vaguely attractive, although it was inaccurate in one or two respects, but the way in which it was presented was as thin as gruel, and the combative approach adopted by the hon. Member for South Suffolk showed that he was more interested in scoring political points than in dealing with the serious problem of climate change.
	It is strange and regrettable that although the Conservatives say that they are interested in climate change, they are apparently happy to endorse the views of Professor David Bellamy, who said on 9 July:
	"The link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming is a myth. It is time the world's leaders, their scientific advisers, and many environmental pressure groups woke up to the fact."
	That man shared a platform shortly afterwards with the leader of the Conservative party, which suggests that it was more important for the party opportunistically to find someone with vague environmental credentials who was opposed to wind farms than to deal with the important problem of climate change.
	The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) mentioned roads and the "tarmac Tories" throughout the country. It is a fact that the hon. Member for South Suffolk said at the Tory party conference:
	"To tackle congestion, I'll expand the road network".
	However, that would not help to solve the problem of carbon emission. An answer has come back about cleaner vehicles, which we all support, but that was not a response to the point that was made.
	The Conservative party's approach is inconsistent. It says that it wants to tackle climate change and to address real issues, but its proposals and policies run counter to that objective. That is true of their policies on both roads and energy. The party says that it is in favour of wind farms, but opposes them in every location in which they are proposed.

Mark Tami: Although I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the Tories, does he agree that the Liberals have exactly the same record on that issue?

Norman Baker: No, and if the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I shall list the occasions on which the Liberal Democrats have supported proposals for wind farms throughout the country, because we do that regularly. We are doing what I assume the Conservatives want us to do, judging by the speech made by the hon. Member for South Suffolk. We judge each application on its merits, so we support many applications and oppose one or two that are inconsistent with local planning guidance. The Conservatives advocate such a policy, so it is a bit rich of them to knock other parties that adopt it.
	The motion cites the Conservative party's well-founded and proper regret that only 2.7 per cent. of energy comes from renewable sources. It is a disgrace that the figure is so low. We are blessed with the potential for renewable energy, whether that is produced by wave, tidal or wind power, or from other sources such as biomass or perhaps even geothermal energy from underneath Cornwall, but we have not exploited that potential in any way. I must say that although the present Government have done little to increase the amount of renewable energy produced, that is because they inherited such a low base in 1997. Neither the Conservative nor the Labour party comes out of the situation with any credit.

Alan Whitehead: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the list of methods of producing renewable energy in the future that he provided would all fall under the 50kW measure, so they would all, in principle, be subject to local decision making prior to an inquiry? Does he agree that if the Conservatives had their way, it would be virtually impossible to introduce any form of renewable energy in a systematic and planned manner to meet renewables targets?

Norman Baker: I think that that would be the outcome. I am afraid that evidence from throughout the country shows that the Conservatives oppose any innovations on renewables, although they pretend to support renewable energy. The policy of absolute local determination might be appropriate if sensible local politicians were to approach the matter apolitically, but that is not the case at present, so we must consider the overall national interest as well as local interest.

Gregory Barker: Just to be clear, is the hon. Gentleman saying that he opposes local people having a say about installations in their communities?

Norman Baker: Certainly not. We favour a presumption from central Government in favour of wind farms, but that would not take away an appropriate level of local determination. A similar arrangement applies to mobile phone masts. There is a presumption in favour of development, but local people may have their say so that applications can be blocked as and when. The alternative systems would be either national diktat or local determination that could stop everything, which seems to be the Conservative party's policy, but neither would be in the national interest.

Robert Walter: The hon. Gentleman said earlier that the Liberal Democrats supported wind turbine applications where they considered them appropriate. Which applications have they supported in constituencies that are represented by Liberal Democrat Members?

Norman Baker: If the hon. Gentleman allows me to make some progress, which I shall now try to do after taking many interventions, I shall come on to that.
	The motion refers to a worry that has its basis in fact: an over-reliance on onshore wind farms. I say to the Minister, in a friendly and genuine way, that the Department of Trade and Industry has identified wind, and especially onshore wind, as the aspect on which greatest progress may be made most quickly. That might be right, but the downside is that insufficient attention is being paid to other possible renewable energy sources. They might be getting £30 million here, or £50 million there, but they are being squeezed out, and insufficient attention is focused on them. The Government must widen their basket of renewable energy and give more help to alternative sources. They should do that now, rather than when wind power is well established, so that the schemes may progress in parallel. That would be my major criticism of the Government's renewable energy policy, to which I hope that the Minister will respond.

Mike O'Brien: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument with care and agree with much of it. I agree that we need to resource the development of other renewables, but if we are to hit the target for 2010, wind will be the main way of doing that: about 3 per cent. could come from other sources, and about 7 to 8 per cent. from wind. Does he not accept that only half at most of that could be offshore wind, and that onshore wind must therefore be developed?

Norman Baker: Of course I accept that onshore wind must be developed—if that was not clear from my remarks, I am happy to put it on the record now—but what I also accept is that there is potential for wave power, tidal power and other sources of renewable energy, which are not being developed at the necessary speed because the Government are keeping their eye almost exclusively on wind power. I am seeking to correct that in Government policy.
	I have a fear—I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature—that Government energy policy is not quite the same as the DTI's energy policy, and that Ministers' views are not always reflected in the legislation drawn up by officials. If the Minister had been present during consideration of the Energy Bill, he would have found it interesting to compare the statements honestly and forthrightly made by his predecessor, who is now the Financial Secretary, with the terms of the Bill, which do not deliver what he was saying he wanted. A large body of opinion in the DTI is wholly in favour of nuclear power, to a far greater degree than Ministers are. The Minister ought to watch that, as he may have been given information that will help the recreation of nuclear power in years to come rather than renewables. It would be convenient for some people—I am not thinking of DTI officials at this moment—for renewables to be strangled. If onshore wind, which is up there in lights, can be discredited totally, renewables can also be discredited as a consequence. That is a very dangerous outcome, which we must try to avoid. That is why politicking on this matter is reprehensible.

Gregory Barker: I find myself very much in agreement with the hon. Gentleman that if onshore wind is discredited the whole renewables agenda will suffer. Is not that the very reason that we must avoid forcing onshore wind into totally inappropriate sites, as the Government are trying to do, such as—to return to it again—Romney marsh?

Norman Baker: I do not wish to comment on Romney marsh, but there is a middle course between the exploitation of the issue for political purposes, in which I fear that some of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues are indulging, and railroading through, which some people wish to do. Neither of those helps wind power or renewable energy. The sensible course is to put in place a policy process to which people can sign up, in which they have confidence, and which will deliver a significant increase in renewable energy in this country from onshore wind and other sources.

David Hamilton: I have been a lifelong opponent of nuclear power, but does not the hon. Gentleman agree that renewables, no matter how optimistic we are about them, will not fill the gap that we are approaching? Security of energy is becoming the biggest issue facing us all, irrespective of which party we represent. If I can change my position and begin to consider such an option, surely that is the way forward. Security of energy must be the criterion that we all work towards.

Norman Baker: I agree that security of energy is important, but I do not agree that nuclear energy is the answer. We have just passed an Energy Bill that commits £48 billion of public money to clear up the mess that we already have. Imagine what we could do with £48 billion to spend on renewable energy—we would have 100 per cent. renewable energy in this country with that money. We have an ever-increasing mountain of intermediate and high-level waste, and no one knows what to do with it. There is no answer to that, and it is irresponsible to build that up further for future generations. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that a policy of energy efficiency—on which the Government need to do far more—and renewables development, plus, I suggest to the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping), some investment for the long term in clean coal technology, as we have hundreds of years of coal supplies under the ground, may be the way forward, rather than nuclear. Nuclear has too many uncertainties and question marks against it for us to proceed down that road.
	Furthermore, variability of supply is an issue with regard to wind power. Obviously, wind stops and starts, so it is not like a coal-fired or oil-fired power station, and the grid capacity that wind can produce must be limited by that variability, but it is also the case, according to a report from Germany—the 2004 wind report by e.on—that the impact on the grid from wind power is detrimental and requires further investment above and beyond that which was expected. Germany has a heavier reliance on wind power than other countries. Has the Minister seen that report, and if so, will he comment on it?
	The visual impact of wind turbines is a subjective issue—some people think that they look attractive, whereas others find them horrendous. I find it difficult to understand how people can object to wind turbines when they are quite happy with pylons all over the country. One of the problems with the current wind power proposals is that they concentrate on areas of population that are often a long way from the centres where the power is expected to be used. We must develop further a close relationship between the location of turbines and the populations where the wind power will be used. That is important not simply to minimise transmission losses and to avoid strings of pylons, but so that local communities have ownership of the turbines and feel that they belong to them, rather than that they have been imposed on them.

Adrian Flook: I agree completely with the hon. Gentleman's last point, but one of the arguments for scarring the Somerset countryside that campaigners for wind farms advance is that turbines will stay up only for 25 years, which is exactly what my local Friends of the Earth members said when I met them on Friday. Does he agree that we must treat with a huge amount of scepticism the notion that any, or many, or those wind turbines will come down after 25 years?

Norman Baker: I have no idea. In a sense, once a wind turbine has been put in place and is delivering, it should carry on for the rest of its operational life. It seems stupid to remove something that is operating satisfactorily. I am not sure that I understand the basis of the question.
	The results of a Greenpeace survey are interesting—hon. Members may say that it has a vested interest, but it commissioned an independent study, and I am not sure whether the Minister was referring to it or to a different study. National polling survey fieldwork carried out for Greenpeace on 25 and 26 August suggested that 79 per cent. of the population were in favour of the development of wind farms in the UK generally, and 69 per cent. were in favour of the development of a wind farm in their area. There is not the huge opposition to wind farms that has been reported. Interestingly, in the south-east, which is perhaps one of the most concentrated areas of population in the country, support for wind farms is strongest.

Roger Williams: On that point, will my hon. Friend join me in complimenting the Ford motor company on having recently erected two wind turbines on its Dagenham site, which are close to where the energy is needed and do not need huge pylons to take the energy into the grid? Does he agree that there may be other sites on industrial estates that could be equally attractive for this purpose?

Norman Baker: I absolutely agree. Indeed, Lewes district council, which the hon. Member for South Suffolk was keen to rubbish inaccurately earlier, is exploring the possibility of a wind turbine to power its own needs. We need to get more wind turbines locally, for the reasons I have given. If we do, we will have less environmental impact and more community support for such developments.

Richard Ottaway: One of the problems with wind farms is intermittency. Onshore, the electricity is not available 70 per cent. of the time; offshore, 50 per cent. of the time. What is the hon. Gentleman proposing to back up wind farms once they reach critical mass?

Norman Baker: I have already suggested that a wide range of renewable sources should be used and that energy needs should be cut through energy efficiency. No doubt we will use gas as a bridge. In the very long term, if we have not found some alternative solution, say from hydrogen, we will have to go back to coal, which I hope by that time will have been cleaned up. That would be my way forward, rather than nuclear power. Coal is not currently usable in big quantities because of the carbon problems, but who knows what scientists may do in terms of clean coal technology? If we are able to develop clean coal technology and export it to countries such as China, that will make more of a difference to climate change than almost anything else we could do, reducing emissions elsewhere in the world.
	I need to refer to the Liberal Democrat record on the matter, because inaccurate statements are made regularly by the hon. Member for South Suffolk in particular, which I cannot let go by. He has put on the record his position. He told the Tory party conference:
	"Take a look at Lib Dem-controlled Lewes. There the council have banned solar power. I am not kidding."
	I do not know whether he has a dictionary to examine the definition of the word "banned", but the official figures are that between 1999 and 2003—I referred to it earlier—the council approved 11 applications for solar panels and rejected four. That hardly seems to constitute a ban.

James Gray: It was 13 out of 18 applications, was it not?

Norman Baker: Three applications were withdrawn, making 18 in all. I am happy to send Conservative Members a copy of the figures, so that they are better informed next time they speak on the issue.
	The hon. Member for South Suffolk said on 16 September 2003:
	"It is almost impossible to find a specific proposal for an onshore wind farm that the Liberal Democrats locally are prepared to support."
	I can give him lots of examples of areas where we have supported wind farms. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid), for example, and the Liberal Democrat Member of the Scottish Parliament, George Lyon, have supported one at Gigha, Scotland's first community-owned wind farm. Aberdeenshire council, which is run by a Liberal Democrat and independent coalition, has supported the Clashindarroch Forest project and the Vale of White Horse project. The Lib Dems are in favour of wind farm developments at Norfolk, including the Cromer offshore scheme. The Lib Dem local council and the local Lib Dem Member there have supported that project.
	I could go on. It is rubbish to say that we have opposed wind farms up and down the country. It is the Conservatives who do so. The hon. Member for South Suffolk neglected to mention that the Conservatives have a moratorium on wind farms in Scotland. That is their policy. It is not selective. It is not judging matters on their merits—it is that all wind farms must be stopped in Scotland. That is their position. George Lyon said:
	"Up to 1,200 jobs in Scotland rely on the development of the wind farm industry . . . yet this young industry would be threatened if this"
	Tory
	"moratorium went ahead—it would be choked at birth".
	Therefore, in their effort to make political points, the Conservatives are strangling development, strangling the environment and taking away jobs as well.

Andrew Turner: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Norman Baker: No, I am going to conclude, because I have spoken for 20 minutes.
	Clearly, the Conservatives are seeking to make political capital out of this. They are in favour of wind farms in principle and against them specifically, wherever they occur. They have ducked the opportunity to have a debate on climate change, which they should have had last Monday, and failing that, they should have had today. They have chosen instead to pick this topic to attack the environment by seeking to undermine renewable energy, which is one of the key ways to tackle climate change. The Conservatives have no credibility on the issue.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The 10-minute time limit on Back-Bench speeches operates from now. Nine hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, so there is a certain difficulty. Mutual self-restraint will, of course, be universally welcomed.

Kevin Barron: If the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) wants people to take the Liberal Democrats seriously in these areas, he should not say things such as that £48 billion could supply Britain's electricity needs by alternative energy. It blows the mind. Can he tell us how he would get 10 per cent. of base load electricity from renewable energy? He should take stock of that. He should also read what the Opposition's motion says. He was saying that he sort of agreed with it in a sense. The Opposition motion mentions
	"the Government's policy of relying exclusively on onshore wind farms to meet its renewable targets".
	That is what the hon. Gentleman believes. What about the £117 million that the Government are putting into offshore wind farm development? Should I go through the list of the tens of millions of other things into which the Government are also putting money?
	I should particularly mention the £31 million towards photovoltaics. Back in the 1980s, when I was an Opposition energy spokesman and had an interest in such matters, the Conservative Government withdrew all research and development into photovoltaics. Anybody who read The Observer yesterday would know that at least this Government are giving grants to people who want to put photovoltaic tiles on their roofs, so that they can bring forward renewable energy in a sensible way. We ought to look at the history of renewable energy before we start talking and accusing the Government, because they have a good record on encouraging renewable energy.

Gregory Barker: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Kevin Barron: No, I will not, because I have only 10 minutes. I might give way later, if I get the chance.
	On onshore wind farms, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, it is not marginal seats in which there are such developments; potentially, seats that people do not think are marginal have them, too. On 30 January, my local newspaper in Rotherham, The Star, ran a story about wind farms. It stated:
	"The company which withdrew controversial plans to build huge turbines in the Peak District is now looking at a site near Rotherham.
	Warrington-based United Utilities has confirmed it is considering a one-and-a-half mile long wind farm in the local countryside.
	Up to 16 massive turbines could be built—each one between 60 and 80 metres high".
	The article also referred to discussions between the company and Rotherham metropolitan borough council's planning authority about the building of only three turbines. I discovered later that that proposal was put forward by npower, which took over from Yorkshire Electricity as a distributor and energy provider.
	In August, npower sent out letters to local residents and to me, outlining its proposal to site three turbines at Loscar common, near the village of Harthill in my constituency. In response, I wrote to npower, highlighting concerns that I wanted it to address. One was the potential problem of noise. Had there been noise factor tests on the turbines that it intended to use and, if so, what were the results? The other concern was the possible TV interference. At the Millhouse Green wind farm on Royd moor in the Barnsley area, I understand that a new relay station eventually had to be installed so that local people could get their television reception back.
	The other issue that I raised with npower was the effect on property values. In January this year, a district judge was reported in The Times as stating that
	"the noise, visual intrusion and flickering of light through the blades of turbines reduced the value of a house by one fifth."
	He went on to say that
	"the value of a remote house in Marton in the Lake District fell significantly because of the construction of a wind farm of seven 40 metre high turbines 500 metres away."
	If that description is true, npower will have to deal with the issue when it is looking into building anything that is close not just to isolated farm houses, but to dozens—and in some instances hundreds—of properties in conservation areas.
	I received a reply on 2 September saying that the person dealing with the matter in npower would be away until 13 September and that on his return I would be sent "a formal proper response"—npower's words, not mine.
	Having not as of today received a response, I asked my office to make contact. It was told that the answers to my questions were specific to the site, or something to that effect, and a meeting to discuss my concerns was suggested. Having been promised a letter on the three issues that have been in the public domain for many months—the judgment was in January—the developer has still not written to me with answers to my fundamental questions.
	I spoke to the planning department of my local council today to find out whether it has received a planning application for the npower site. It has, but it is invalid owing to the lack of detail. I am confused about who has made the application, because it could be the farmer rather than npower, but I fear that such planning applications will not diminish my constituents' worries, but make them grow. The developers need to be more professional.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: Two or three times in Somerset, companies have looked for sites and done so very publicly so that people thought that they were putting in an application. They then got an idea of public opinion.

Kevin Barron: I suspect that that is true.
	Five parish councils have joined together because they are worried about the applications. Companies are looking around and I think that a game of poker is being played, which is not good. Although I had no local authority experience before coming into the House, it is clear from my case load that plenty of games of poker have been played with planning applications for the past 21 years. It is a major issue that has not been handled professionally. However, I have given a date when I will meet npower. It has asked to meet some of the local authorities, but not the planning authority, and they are not too happy about it.
	United Utilities has not publicly discussed its 16-turbine plan. That raises many questions about how the planning applications will make progress, if they are to make progress, and what the implications are for the Government's planning policy statement 22, published earlier this year. The Guardian reported in August that it was a way of getting wind farms built with no or little opposition from local communities.
	I want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister about a number of things. One relates to the key principles. PPS22 states:
	"At the local level, planning authorities should set out the criteria that will be applied in assessing applications for planning permission".
	It goes on to say:
	"The Government may intervene in the planning process where it considers that the constraints being proposed by local authorities are too great or have been poorly justified."
	What does that mean in the context of local authorities presumably having the right to give their opinion?
	The key principles also state:
	"Developers of renewable energy projects should engage in active consultation and discussion with local communities at an early stage".
	One of the developers—npower—has attempted to do that, but no one else has. There is a plan for 16 turbines, stretching for one and a half miles, but no attempt has been made to engage in public consultation. Under those circumstances, we need to tell local authorities and communities exactly what we mean by the planning policy statement. I know that a booklet is to be issued on that, but how should we interpret it now?
	The section on landscape and visual effects states:
	"Of all renewable technologies, wind turbines are likely to have the greatest visual and landscape effects. However, in assessing planning applications, local authorities should recognise that the impact of turbines on the landscape will vary according to the size and number of turbines and the type of landscape involved".
	I accept that entirely, but what do we do when an application for three turbines is followed by an application for another 16? Should my local authority say that that is, in fact, a planning application for 19 wind turbines in urban Rotherham, because the companies have been chased out of rural areas and the Peak district?
	Those big issues must be addressed. Interpretation of the Government's planning policy statement is crucial if we are to achieve steady growth in renewable energy.

Peter Ainsworth: I applaud the way in which the motion sets the debate about wind farms in the context of the much wider debate about climate change. I am sorry that the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats did not appear to notice that.
	I am an agnostic on wind farms. I like the look of them, especially when they are abroad, but I am not sure that I should like to see them on a planner's map that affected my constituency. Therein lies the problem. The issue is compounded by the fact that, to achieve 5 per cent. of our energy needs from wind power, we shall have to build 6,000 of the things. Where are they to go?
	The Government know that they have a problem, which is precisely why they changed the planning guidance. In doing so, they have set themselves on a possible collision course with public opinion, and that concerns me. Measures designed to improve the quality of the environment must be aligned with public opinion, not opposed to it. I appreciate that the Government have a difficult job, but they must be careful not to go looking for a fight.
	The motion castigates the Government's performance, as Opposition motions do, but I am sorry that so much of this debate has been characterised by cross-party political bickering. There is a real need for political consensus on these issues if we are to avoid the disaster that threatens. The Government have undertaken some positive measures and set some useful targets. The fact that they are missing their targets and are likely to carry on doing so illustrates that their efforts are not yet sufficiently joined up or consistent.
	The Government need to be much more imaginative in their use of fiscal instruments. They must use carrots as well as sticks to alter behaviour. Many of the measures introduced so far are peripheral, small fry and very small scale; for example, the Budget measure this year to reduce VAT on ground source heat pumps resulted, if it resulted in anything, in a chorus of "What is a ground source heat pump?". Such measures are useful and worthy, but will not make the difference between success and failure.
	There are glaring inconsistencies. If the aim of increasing wind farm capacity is to cut CO 2 emissions, why on earth are the Government simultaneously proposing a trebling in aviation capacity, whose effect will be to negate any benefit from covering the entire country in controversial wind turbines? The Government need to be coherent if they are to be believed. They must send out clear, unequivocal messages if they expect people to go along with them.
	We need an urgent step change in investment in renewable energy for three reasons. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) has already touched on them. The first is that our increasing dependence on overseas oil and gas poses a long-term threat to security of supply. It makes good economic sense to become less dependent on others for our electricity needs.
	Secondly, the declining role for nuclear power envisaged in current Government policy will leave a 25 per cent. gap in our energy supply in about 20 years' time. Some people say that we should start building new nuclear capacity. I am not convinced that that is politically or economically attractive, or even viable. The nuclear industry has betrayed too many promises in the past for us to be able to rely on it now. It is massively expensive and dependent on the taxpayer and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the issues about waste are far from being resolved. The Minister may want to know that, in evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee, Professor Sir David King, the Government's chief scientist, said that his attitude to reinvesting in nuclear energy had been affected by the events of 9/11. There are genuine security concerns.

David Chaytor: Is it not the case that the chief scientific adviser suggested some months ago that new nuclear build might be necessary, but only as an interim measure until the full range of renewable technologies had been properly developed, not as a permanent solution?

Peter Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman is exactly right and I am grateful to him for his intervention. However, I am concerned that, by keeping the nuclear option open, as it were in an antechamber to where the main debate is taking place, the Government are setting up a powerful disincentive for investment in other forms of renewable.
	The third reason why we need to get to grips with the matter and bring about a step change in the level of investment and political commitment is the biggest reason of all: the threat posed by climate change. I know that some people say there is no problem. When more than 1,000 of the world's leading scientists say there is a problem, we had better believe them or be very lucky indeed. We know that global temperatures are rising fast and concentrations of CO 2 in the atmosphere are higher than they have been for over 400,000 years. We know that there are forecasts predicting that, on a business-as-usual case, by the end of the century we could see temperatures in the United Kingdom up by 10°C, which would lead to Sahara-like conditions in parts of the south of England. Do we really want to leave that to our children and future generations?
	What is worse is that that is happening now. We do not need a crystal ball. We do not need to look into the future or make predictions. Sir David King made an extremely powerful speech in the Greenpeace business lecture about a week ago, in which he set out some of the ways in which it is happening. I will not rehearse them all. The Greenland ice sheet is melting by about 10 m a year, that water heads into the sea and water levels go up. The Thames barrier, which was opened in 1982, was designed to be operated about once every five years. It is now being operated about six times a year on average. The World Health Organisation reports that 150,000 people die every year around the world directly as a result of the impacts of global warming. There were 30,000 excess deaths in Europe in 2003 during the heat wave.
	Much of our infrastructure—pylons, roads, communications networks, rail lines—was built to withstand temperatures of up to 30° C. Kent recorded more than 38° C in August 2003. That is putting huge and potentially massively expensive pressure on all our infrastructure. I know that the Minister for the Environment, whom I am pleased to see in his place, knows this. The worst aspect is that, as Professor King says, even if we found a solution tomorrow, the problems would still be with us for another hundred years.
	We may castigate the Government for being timid and inactive and not doing enough, but even if the UK solved all its problems, built wind farms everywhere and radically cut CO 2 from our energy supply, transport and housing, we would be dealing with only 2 per cent. of total global warming. We are responsible for only 2 per cent. of CO 2 emissions. The United States, responsible for 25 per cent., has not even bothered to recognise that climate change is happening and has not signed the Kyoto protocol. That is a disgrace, but I welcome the apparent change of heart on the part of the Russian Government recently.
	In that context the debate about wind farms looks trifling. It is not surprising that some people argue that the UK's climate change programme is pointless. They say it would place us at a competitive disadvantage without achieving very much for mankind. But if we accept that we have a problem, we have a moral duty to do the right thing. If we go about it the right way, it may not involve too many hair shirts to do the right thing. I said that it would make good economic sense to become less dependent on others for sources of energy. It would be good environmental and economic sense to be at the forefront of cleaner, greener technologies. It would make good economic and environmental sense to ensure that, if we build millions of new houses, every one is built to the highest standards of energy efficiency. It would be good economic and environmental sense to support a far greater investment in offshore wind power, tidal power, wave power, solar power and biomass. It would make good economic and environmental sense to support households that wish to buy into the developing sector of micro-renewables, solar power, micro-wind and micro-combined heat and power.
	More and more households need to be energy-efficient, eventually become energy producers in their own right and sell the energy that they do not need back to the grid. They could make money from that. We could do that for, for example, a fraction of the cost of the war in Iraq, an event that was not entirely unassociated with our addiction to fossil fuels. It would bequeath a much safer national and global security situation to our children.
	Giant industrial and distant wind farms may be part of the answer, but I believe that they will be a small part. Offshore wind will play a much bigger part. The future may lie in small, local, affordable and surprisingly uncontentious micro-power.

Bob Blizzard: The original title of the debate, "The Siting of Onshore Wind Farms", suggested a debate about planning policy. It was difficult to understand how there could be much of a debate on that because planning policy statement 22 on renewable energy is an entirely reasonable document. It gives only general guidance and is not a diktat, because it is for regional spatial strategies and local development plans to set out plan-led policies that are particular to an area.
	The first key principle of PPS22 refers to appropriate environmental safeguards in planning for renewable energy developments. All the usual planning criteria are contained in PPS22, covering protection of internationally and nationally designated sites, green belts, landscapes and visual effects and noise. Given the challenge of global warming, PPS22 is a reasonable document unless one supports a blanket ban on wind farms.
	The debate highlights the nature of the Conservative party's political strategy, or lack of it. Conservative Members look out for any apparent discontent and, in a desperate search for votes, try to jump on the bandwagon. They try to link up with any stop the wind farm campaign. They do not relate that to policy on dealing with global warming and rising sea levels, which are important to coastal communities such as my constituency. They behave similarly on housing and house building by opposing any plan that people do not like. Again, they do not relate that to homelessness or the high prices that keep young and first-time buyers off the property ladder.
	Property is relevant to wind farms because I suspect that the real objection of most people who oppose wind farm applications will not be found in the planning criteria—for example, landscape, wildlife and noise—but relates to worries about the possible effect on the value of their property. That is not surprising given the amount of their wealth that most people in this country invest in their home. However, the flood risk from rising sea levels through global warming poses a much greater threat to the value of people's properties than the odd windmill down the road.

Andrew Turner: The hon. Gentleman can understand that I share his concern about rising sea levels, but does he not believe that it is better to devote some of the resources to insulation, which would save approximately 55 times the amount of energy that the Government's proposed wind farms would generate?

Bob Blizzard: I do not believe that it is either/or. We must adopt a full-scale energy saving programme and do everything that we can to achieve the 20 per cent. target for renewable energy by 2020. The Government are determined to do that. There is a huge drag factor on onshore wind farm applications. That is why the Government have made a big push on developing offshore wind. We will achieve those targets only if we make progress now as a matter of urgency, but that seems to have escaped many Conservative Members.
	I do not think we should infer, however, that because there are objections to wind farm applications, wind energy is unpopular. Over the past 10 years, more than 50 polls have shown a consistent 70 to 80 per cent. support for it—and, as was mentioned earlier, some of the strongest support comes from people living in areas containing wind farms.
	Recent debates on what is now the Energy Act 2004 revealed the Conservative party as the source of a much wider attack on wind energy, not just onshore but offshore. I could spend the rest of my time this evening quoting what prominent Conservatives in both Houses have said about wind in general, but I will content myself with quoting the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), who said that the Government were making the greatest mistake over windmills since Don Quixote.
	What have the Conservatives got against wind power? They say that they support renewable energy and the targets, but they criticise the Government for majoring far too much on wind and other renewable sources. I ask them, what other source of renewable energy is more commercially applicable now, on a scale sufficient to achieve the 10 and 20 per cent. targets and to tackle climate change? No such source is available now, on that scale and at that cost. If we do not make an impact now, we shall have no chance of doing so in the future.
	Wind energy is the most cost-effective renewable-energy technology available now to generate clean electricity and help combat climate change. People say it is costly, but other renewable-energy sources are even more costly. Labour Members want those other sources to take their place, but they are not commercially ready yet. I think the next will be tidal current, and I look forward to having lots of tidal current—

Elliot Morley: My hon. Friend means water?

Bob Blizzard: Tidal current, providing energy for our country. We will need all those sources to achieve our targets, and it would be madness to abandon wind at this stage.
	I ask again: why are the Conservatives so opposed to wind energy? I think the answer lies in their real but unwritten energy policy. It is clear from what many of them said during the passage of the Energy Bill, and from what has been said this evening, that their real policy involves a new generation of nuclear power stations. Conservative Member after Conservative Member has advocated that. Their leader and Front Benchers will not formally announce it, because they do not want to tell villagers who oppose wind farms "Don't worry, we support you on that: we are going to build a nuclear power station instead."

Ian Liddell-Grainger: My constituency contains four nuclear reactors. There has been an application for 12 turbines next to them. I have received more complaints about the turbines than about the nuclear reactors.

Bob Blizzard: I shall not extrapolate, and apply information about one place to the whole country.
	Nuclear energy is, of course, a zero carbon dioxide emission generator, but it is costly too—just as costly as wind energy. I think it pointless to argue about the respective merits of these energy sources, because ultimately we shall need them all if we want to maintain security of supply and meet the long-term target of a 60 per cent. reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Neither wind nor renewables in general will be the sole answer to the problem, but surely we must get whatever we can from wind energy. Future generations would not forgive us if we did not make maximum use of the wind, but I am afraid that the Conservative policies that we have heard this evening would not achieve that.
	We have been told that a nuclear review might be produced within a year of the arrival of a possible Conservative Government. That would be much too quick, and it would require Government finance, because nuclear energy does not take its place in a liberalised energy market on its own. Such a development would stifle and suffocate investment in renewables, and wind energy and other renewables would remain babes strangled at birth. The Government's policy in the White Paper is right—to keep the nuclear option open but to keep it at bay for some time to enable wind and other renewable energy sources, and other carbon dioxide reduction technologies, to get off the ground and play their full part.
	Wind energy, especially from offshore wind farms, is key for my constituency. As I said, it is a coastal constituency. Global warming and climate change are real threats to people who live by the coast. I am not talking only about the impact that a rise in sea levels would have on places such as Lowestoft, Kessingland and Corton that are actually on the coast. One can also foresee the Waveney and the Hundred rivers becoming huge lakes, with massive flooding penetrating miles and miles inland and affecting other towns, such as Beccles and Bungay, and villages in my constituency. That is why I am concerned about climate change, and that is why I do not want to oppose wind energy but to promote it.
	Wind energy also provides a huge economic opportunity. For many economic activities, Lowestoft, as Britain's most easterly point, is not exactly in the best geographical position, but for developing a wind energy industry, Lowestoft is in the ideal position. It is a port right in the middle of the best and most expansive area designated suitable for offshore wind development from the Wash to the Thames estuary. With many years of expertise in building, assembling and installing offshore structures with the oil and gas industry, Lowestoft is, as its brochure says, "Britain's leading edge" in wind energy.
	The turbines for Britain's first truly offshore wind farm at Scroby sands were, I am proud to say, assembled in and shipped out from Lowestoft harbour. We have formed the Lowestoft wind energy steering group, which I chair, to maximise our opportunities and I am pleased that the East of England Development Agency is now giving us financial support to establish an offshore renewable energy centre to build on that geographic advantage. The presence of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science also helps, because it does much of the environmental assessment work offshore. I am proud to say that we are also building a large wind turbine at Britain's most easterly point in Lowestoft and we hope to see that completed by the end of the year.
	The Labour party will go into the next election supporting wind energy as a key part of achieving our policy of 20 per cent. renewable generation by 2020, as a milestone on the way to the 60 per cent. reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. We need to prevent constituencies such as mine being submerged by rising sea levels from global warming. The Conservatives, on the other hand, are trying to play opportunist politics, desperately grasping for votes, and have no sensible energy policy. They do not want to announce what they actually support and they will go into the election keeping the people in the dark. Their policy is so confused that if they did win the election, people would literally spend more time in the dark as, once again, under the Conservatives, the lights would go out in Britain.

Richard Ottaway: I welcome the fact that—contrary to what the Liberal Democrats say—the motion embraces the issues of climate change. We on this planet face two challenges. The first is that we are using up our resources faster than we can replace them. The Government have a duty to protect those resources, but that is not easy when facing relentless demands from a restless society. The second challenge is that our climate is warming. Nature is telling us something when daffodils flower a week earlier than they did four years ago, when sharks are found in unprecedented numbers around Scotland and sea levels are rising. Something is clearly going on, and the question posed by many people is whether man is causing it. In my judgment, the answer is yes.My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) made an excellent speech and he referred to the Greenpeace lecture by Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, in which he said that man's activities clearly play a part.
	Research shows that there have been seven or eight global warming cycles in the past 800,000 years and that atmospheric carbon peaked at 250 to 275 parts per million during each of those cycles. As the Minister will know, today the figure is 378 parts per million and rising fast at the rate of about two parts per million a year. As my hon. Friend said, Sir David King warns that the ice caps will melt when atmospheric carbon hits about 500 parts per million, and the reasons that he gives for that increase are deforestation and population growth.
	Given the huge growth in the economies of China and India, neither of which is part of the Kyoto agreement and whose populations are growing at 70,000 people a day, we have to put international leadership on climate change at the heart of our foreign policy. That is why I am critical of the Government: they talk a good fight, but they do not do much about it. We have heard that CO 2 emissions have risen since 1997. During Foreign Affairs questions the other day, the Foreign Secretary lectured the House about the robust line on the Kyoto agreement that he was taking with the American Administration, but he was unaware that CO 2 emissions were rising.
	I agree with those who call for us to hit the targets. We must hit the 2050 target, but we need coherent policies and a road map in place so that we know how that will be achieved. Some measures could be taken immediately. We should phase out hydrofluorocarbons, as announced by the Leader of the Opposition, and carbon trading has a serious part to play, but we can address the issue most by making renewables a key component of our energy policy. My complaint is about the slow pace of change. In 2003, 69 per cent. of suppliers failed to meet their renewables targets.
	The Government have put heavy emphasis on wind farms. I listened with interest to the last speech, but it was a misrepresentation: the Opposition are not against wind farms; what we question is the building of onshore wind farms, and there is huge potential in offshore wind farms. I recently had the opportunity to visit North Hoyle, where some 50 turbines have been put up already, with another 450 proposed. Wind will not be enough on its own. As the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) often tells us—he did not do so today—it takes several thousand wind turbines to replace one power station.
	Wind turbines must be built offshore, where large numbers of them would be acceptable. That is why the change in planning guidance is wrong. Five or 10 wind turbines on a hillside will not have that much impact on electricity supply, but they will have a big impact on the local environment. If a block of flats cannot be built on the top of a hillside that is of outstanding natural beauty, why can wind turbines be built there? I am delighted that the Conservative party will repeal the planning guidance when it takes office.
	It is in energy policy that our attempts to meet the challenge must be driven forward. The failure to stimulate other renewables is a disaster. We will not hit the 2010 renewables target, which the Government admit, as is shown by their review of the renewables obligation. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) said in his opening speech, for the first time in history, we will be dependent in the long term on imported energy, but most dangerously of all, that coincides with the phasing out of coal, under the large combustion directive, and nuclear power.
	Notwithstanding the fact that no new power station is under construction in this country, mainly as the result of the spot market operations of the new electricity trading arrangements, by 2030, we will have an energy mix of 20 per cent. renewables, 70 per cent. gas and 10 per cent. oil. That, in itself, poses three problems. First, as I said earlier, there would be no solution to the problem of intermittency. Secondly, we will not be on course for the 2050 target. Thirdly, we will be heavily dependent on imported energy, which will, in truth, emasculate foreign policy.
	I agree with the Government that it is right to keep open the nuclear option, but I also agree with James Lovelock, the Right Reverend Hugh Montefiore, Sir Crispin Tickell and the Government chief scientists that we have to embrace that option and give it urgent consideration, as that will not only give us economic and political independence and a key tool in fighting climate change, but with the first hydrogen-fuelled production car coming on stream in 2010, provide the answer to mass hydrogen production, which will give us a triple whammy in one go. However, the Government have ducked the issue, and I seriously pose the question, can democracy combat climate change? The Government ducked nuclear power because it is unpopular. Kyoto has been an issue in the United States presidential election.
	The Liberal Democrats posture on the environment. I drew attention to their inconsistencies last week over their support for a number of road transport projects. They have argued against air travel, yet at the same time they support airport expansion. I wonder whether that is because BAA plc is one of their largest donors. They argue against waste incineration in Guildford and Hull, but support it in Sheffield. It is no surprise that Stephen Tindale, the executive director of Greenpeace, said:
	"The Liberal Democrats don't seem to have any principles when it comes to waste management and will say anything that they think gains them electoral advantage."
	They also campaign against 4x4s, but many of them drive around in them.
	On wind farms, their hypocrisy knows no limit. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) said that his party supports wind farms, but it has been stated in the press:
	"Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Norman Baker last night accused anti-wind farm campaigners in the West country of 'acting irresponsibly'"—
	at least he is consistent—but the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey)
	"has backed the campaign against a development at Fullabrook Down in his constituency, which would see the erection of 20 turbines up to 360ft high.
	Responding to Mr. Baker's comments he said: 'Norman is not responsible for our planning policy.'"
	That is what the Liberal Democrats think of their own spokesman.

Robert Walter: I can probably add to my hon. Friend's list. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and I successfully campaigned against a wind farm on our respective borders.

Richard Ottaway: My hon. Friend gives an answer to the question that I posed about whether democracy can respond to climate change. As he says, in order to achieve that, we need to build consensus. I say to the Liberal Democrats, "Stop playing games with the environment; it is a very serious subject indeed." They should work with people, instead of engaging in short-term posturing, which is what they do. If we look at the United States, Sheffield or Devon, we can see that the answer to the question is that democracy is struggling to combat climate change. A consensus is needed.
	Ask the man in the street if he cares about the environment, and he will respond, "Yes, of course." It is one of those issues we are all signed up to, but it needs more than words; it needs action. My party would provide the lead that is necessary.

Vera Baird: Rubbish. That has nothing to do with recycling, but is a comment on the asinine Opposition motion that states that the Government intend to meet their renewable obligations by relying exclusively on onshore wind power.
	I admire and support the Government's commitment to renewables. They are spending £117 million on offshore wind power. That is good, in that the round 2 offshore wind farms are a minimum of 8 km offshore, and 13 km where nature interests require that. They are located way out in the sea, and subject to navigation and fishing rights; nobody goes there. They are ideal locations for wind farms, and they are, inevitably, the thrust of future wind farm policy.
	I want to sound a quick caution that we should not override the concerns of people local to the last of the round 1 wind farms, which are to be built much closer to shore. There is concern that, as the Government amendment states and the Minister made clear, although the planning regime allows all-round consideration of onshore wind farms, the procedure for offshore wind farms is less clear; it is not so open, obvious or public, in the sense that there need not be a planning inquiry. That gives rise to real fears, which I hope my colleagues on the Treasury Bench understand, that no matter what or how rational the local objections, they can be killed in the understandable rush to renewables.
	Teesside is faced with an application for the last of the round 1 offshore wind farms. The round 2 wind farms—admittedly bigger than those in round 1—are between 8 and 13 km offshore, whereas no round 1 wind power station is less than 5 km offshore except for Scroby sands, where the nearest turbine lies about 2.5 km offshore. The proposed Redcar wind farm would be half as far away as that: 1.4 km off the esplanade in Redcar to the nearest turbine. There would be 30 turbines, each 450 ft high and about 5 m in diameter—they are pretty big. They would run 200 yd apart, with 600 yd between the three rows, straddling the whole of the bay on which Redcar town lies. The easternmost would be 1.4 km off the tourist office in the middle of the town, and the next would be opposite the seafront cinema.
	Redcar is an industrial constituency, but as one travels toward the sea to the town of Redcar, one leaves behind the chemicals and eventually the steel industry. There is a wonderful 5-mile long wide sandy beach where swingboats, bouncy castles and sports activities all occur in summer. It is the proximity to the industrial area that makes Redcar town such a special treat for the local people, who go there to breathe its free air, refresh their mind with the clean sea view, and lift their horizon from the humdrum. There are real concerns about the impact on the area of such an industrial installation.
	Let me add that there is already a plan to have between 18 and 32 equally large turbines on land, onshore, adjacent to the steelworks in the industrial landscape—a plan to which nobody in Redcar has a real objection. Furthermore, Redcar already makes a big contribution to clean energy: our SembCorp power station has now been burning tallow—a renewable fuel—for a year and has ambitions to build a biomass generation facility; and we have well developed plans in the area for hydrogen fuel cell technology. We would be pleased to do more, as tidal and wave power develop.

Peter Pike: My hon. and learned Friend is making a valuable point. Wherever the wind farms are, is not the most important thing that they are sited as appropriately as possible? My constituency is in the hilly country near the Pennines. We have one wind farm, but if Burnley were to be surrounded by wind farms, the impact on the environment would be disastrous.

Vera Baird: My hon. Friend makes an apposite point, because the 18 to 35-turbine onshore station that, it is already accepted, is coming to Redcar will result in a huge estate being sandwiched between it and the shore. If an offshore station were erected, people would be living between two wind farms, which is probably not tolerable. The point is that in an industrial area such as mine, we should not extend industry into a seaside oasis.
	The potential problems arising from such close proximity—1.4 km—are not known. They never will be known, because all the future developments will be between 8 and 13 km offshore and no other round 1 wind farm will be situated less far offshore than the Scroby sands station. The only people to learn what the impact is of a very close wind farm will be the residents of Redcar after the proposed wind farm is built. The environmental impact assessment conducted by the would-be developers contains nine chapters that identify potential additional hazards to Redcar, apart from visual intrusion and interference with tourism expansion and sea sports, which we want to encourage. They include the risk of large quantities of sand being stripped from Redcar beach by the impact of the tide breaking on turbine towers very close to shore, as well as potential threats to some sites of special scientific interest, the seal colony, a Ramsar site and the European nature reserve, some of which are within half a kilometre of some of the turbines.
	I have a question. What is the process now? In the summer months alone, between 5,000 and 6,000 have signed a petition against the proposed wind farm. Everybody in the town opposes it, as does the council and all four local Members of Parliament. I have a plea. It is imperative that in the rush to wind power, despite its merits, everything else is not driven before it.
	Round 2 wind farms involve 15 leases that can generate up to 7.2 GW of capacity, enough for one sixth of households in the UK. They will all be 60 to 90 turbine wind farms and well away offshore. These plans make the UK one of the most ambitious in terms of future wind power, probably putting us in the world lead in offshore turbine development.
	Clearly the round 1 wind farms will be built very soon. The turbines will be bought from Denmark and Germany, where there is an established turbine manufacturing industry. The current manufacturing base in the UK consists of a small blade factory and a turbine factory, which I think are both owned by the Danish company, Vestas; a turbine production facility at Loughborough and a Nordic wind turbine manufacturing facility at Fife.
	These future offshore zones—

Andrew Turner: Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

Vera Baird: No; I am afraid that I do not have enough time.
	The future offshore zones are in three strategic areas and two of them are on the east coast—the larger one is on the Wash and the second on the Thames estuary. Together they should create in the UK a home market for an offshore supply chain of about £7 billion. In addition, European wind farms are planned on the north-east coasts of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Those coasts are readily accessible from the north-east of Britain.
	The north-east has a long history of, and a well-established capacity in, manufacturing. It has world class capabilities in the marine, offshore oil, gas and power generation sectors. It is currently completing a new renewable energy centre at Blythe, benefiting from £10 million of investment and creating a nucleus of renewable industrial activity. This centre will have the biggest wind turbine blade test facility in Europe.
	The industrial and research skills base in the north-east is considerable and it is augmented by a large number of technical graduates from universities in the region. There is already offshore wind capability provided by Marine Projects International, which is based in Middlesbrough, and AMEC, which is based in Hexham. In addition to these strengths, offshore wind jobs will make, or can make, a vital contribution to reducing the north-east's economic deprivation. The unemployment rate in the region, which has been caused by a steady decline in traditional manufacturing, is about 6.5 per cent. although it has been slashed over the past few years.
	In 2002, 18,000 of the region's unemployed were science and engineering professionals, skilled workers in construction, engineering and other trades or plant and machine operators. That demonstrates that there is a high availability of potential skilled labour for a new north-east far offshore wind energy industry. Rates of pay are extremely competitive compared with those in Denmark and Germany, where turbines are currently manufactured.
	There is no doubt that there are the seeds of a major new industry that is entirely apt, but not exclusively so, to the north-east. The Government are to be congratulated on the fact that their future far offshore wind policy will not only benefit climate change but will simultaneously offer regeneration opportunities.
	I make a nod in the direction of Greenpeace, from which I have taken some of the statistics I have cited. It is fine to do so. I hope that the worries that I have set out about Redcar show how important it is, particularly if we are to carry people with us to a renewables future, that it be acknowledged that wind power stations can be extremely intrusive, and that sometimes these intrusions must be allowed to prevail.
	I hope that I have also made it clear, however, that sensible people can rationally oppose an individual installation on sound grounds while supporting and, indeed, encouraging the drive for renewables as a whole. All of the people in Redcar to whom I have spoken have that state of mind about renewable energy.

Robert Walter: It is unusual for a constituency Member to be able to participate in such a timely debate. It is both relevant and topical to my constituency because at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning I shall be appearing before the development control committee of the North Dorset district council, which will be considering an application to build nine wind turbines in the Winterborne valley in Dorset. Such is the opinion in my constituency against those developments that the local authority has had to house the meeting, which is considering one application only, in the largest hall in the area.
	I declare a small but non-pecuniary interest: I shall appear at that meeting as the honorary chairman of the 1,000-member strong Dorset Against Rural Turbines. That organisation came into being because in the past 18 months no fewer than four schemes have been proposed in and around my constituency. In total, the schemes would have amounted to some 49 turbines in Blackmoor vale and the Winterborne valley—Hardy country.
	Two of those applications were within feet of my constituency and were actually in the constituency of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). As I mentioned earlier, he and I combined to get his local authority, South Somerset district council, which still encourages applications for wind farms on its website, to reject one of those applications. That council is Liberal Democrat controlled, but I do not want to make a party political point. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome saw that his own constituents were so opposed to that application that he joined me.
	Another application, which is still current, is to build 12 turbines on the airfield at Henstridge. Although Henstridge is technically in the constituency of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, it is a finger that sticks out into my constituency, and most people assume that it is in my constituency.

John Hayes: My hon. Friend has highlighted two points that I wonder whether he will amplify. First, applicants tend to make applications on the edge of constituencies or local authority boundaries, which makes things very difficult for all concerned. Secondly, the cumulative impact of applications is rarely measured, and the Government must take it seriously. I am fighting applications on the edge of my constituency affecting Gedney Hill, Throckenholt and Sutton St. Edmund in the same way as my hon. Friend.

Robert Walter: I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point, because the applications that I have described are not only on local authority and constituency boundaries, but a county boundary, so two county authorities' alternative policies also come into play.
	The other two applications that are current in my constituency are in the Winterborne valley. At one stage, the applications were for a total of 35 turbines, which would have been sandwiched between two areas of outstanding natural beauty and among, but not on, National Trust land and some of the most beautiful towns and villages in Dorset. Under public pressure, those 35 turbines were reduced to 32 and then, I am pleased to say, 23 of them dropped out of the equation because of the power of public opinion—the Drax estate saw that all its neighbours were up in arms about its having those turbines on its land. I congratulate Richard Drax and his family on that decision because, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), those turbines might have been seen as a "valuable new crop" on the Drax estate.
	That leaves tomorrow's application from Your Energy, which was mentioned earlier. It seems to be a company of little substance and one can find out very little about it. Its application is for nine turbines in the Winterborne valley, although I must say that the officers of my local authority have recommended refusal and no doubt we will hear the weight of local opinion tomorrow. The turbines are of an unprecedented size and number in a beautiful lowland landscape. Installing nine massive turbines, which would be 105 m high, in attractive, soft, rolling, rural down land would be industrialisation on a huge scale.
	The Campaign to Protect Rural England has stated that the visual impact on the two adjacent areas of outstanding natural beauty—

David Taylor: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the difficulties with wind turbine technology is that for six months of the year only 11 per cent. of the designed and built capacity is used because of a lack of wind? That means that for half the year the nine turbines that the hon. Gentleman is talking about would produce only the equivalent of the maximum output of one. That is an issue, is it not?

Robert Walter: It certainly is, and I shall come to it in a moment in relation to the efficiency of these turbines.
	The area where it is proposed to place the turbines would be adjacent to two conservation areas in the villages of Winterborne Zelston and Mapperton. Some much valued heritage sites are very close by—the Badbury and Spetisbury rings, and Hambledon and Hod hills, which will be remembered by those who know their civil war history—and many listed buildings in the vicinity would be ruined for ever. Winterborne Tomson church, which would be towered over by the wind farm, has been described thus in a book compiled by John Betjeman's daughter, Candida Lycett Green, entitled "Over the Hills and Far Away":
	"there were so many magical views and memorable jewels of houses but none could ever compare with that exquisite church at Winterborne Tomson. I shall always remember the cool, pristine 'prayerfulness' of the unearthly place . . . it was total perfection and worth driving hours just to be there".
	Those words were written by another large local landowner, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Approval for the proposal would destroy that location and set a precedent for expansion and duplication not only in Dorset but across southern England in similar lowland sites.
	We have heard some of the compelling arguments on environmental issues. There is increasing evidence from Europe, as well as from this country, to prove the harmful effects of long-term exposure to audible and low-frequency noise from wind turbines. However, little or no research has been undertaken on turbines of this size; and the Government seem to have excluded wind turbines from the current research into low-frequency noise that is taking place at Salford university.
	Then there is the loss of amenity—I have talked about our beautiful landscape—and the impact on tourism and the local economy. At the planning application meeting on the turbine proposed for Cucklington in south Somerset, on the boundary of my constituency, it was estimated that the negative effect on the local tourism industry would be more than £3 million a year.
	As the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) pointed out, wind power is intermittent.

David Chaytor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Robert Walter: No; I have done so a couple of times, and I have some important points to make.
	Wind power is also inefficient. As we all know, the wind will not be blowing on the cold, frosty morning when everybody wants to put the cooker and the kettle on to make breakfast, turn the heating up as far as possible, and have hot water for a bath or shower. That makes wind power a very expensive alternative when it is located at such inefficient onshore locations. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) on her successful exposition of the alternative—offshore wind energy. The indirect subsidy results in wind energy producers having to be paid about three times the commercial price of the energy that they are producing. Wind power is an unreliable and inefficient way in which to proceed.
	In summary, wind turbines will not stop global warming. They are more expensive than all other mainstream sources of energy and do not produce a significant amount of power. They disturb nearby residents and cause both physical and psychological illness. They harm wildlife, destroy large tracts of much cherished landscape and require massive funding from the taxpayer. A balance must be achieved in contentious planning applications such as that in which I will be involved tomorrow. The case for wind power has not been proven. The potential gains from it are minimal, but the losses due to it, and the effect on our environment especially, are absolutely enormous.

James Gray: We have had a fine, interesting and well-informed debate. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have made good speeches in what should be an academic discussion about two matters of huge importance to all of us: first, what we can do to preserve the global environment; and secondly, what we can do to preserve the local and rural environment, which is almost as important to many of us, especially Conservative Members. The significance of one argument should not be overwhelmingly greater than that of the other, and we should try to strike a balance between the two.
	It is notable that today's debate has been called by Her Majesty's Opposition because the Conservative party has taken the lead for at least 30 years on environmental matters—Baroness Thatcher was the first person to raise global warming, in a memorable speech some 30 years ago. Let no one mistake the fact that Conservative Members are wholly committed to combating global warming using a basket of renewable energy sources as part of an armoury of weapons.
	I pay tribute to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway), who has made a huge contribution to our discussions on such matters over recent months. I have greatly enjoyed working with him and I know that he will continue to do that. My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) plays a distinguished role as Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, and he spoke with great passion and knowledge.
	Conservative Members accept the renewables obligation, and we are as keen as anyone to find a way of meeting it. However, that should not preclude a sensible and grown-up debate about how best to achieve that. Should the policy be largely dependent on onshore wind farms, which in essence seems to be the Government's current proposal? The Minister for Energy and E-Commerce made it clear that half of the balance required to increase the 2.7 per cent. of energy currently produced by renewables to the target of 10 per cent. would be achieved by using onshore farms, with the other half achieved using offshore ones. I suspect that onshore farms will produce more energy than offshore farms. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey nicely put it, we need a step change in our approach to such matters, and we must use not simply one such source but a basket of several.

Bob Blizzard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

James Gray: I have only 10 minutes in which to speak, and the hon. Gentleman has had his say.
	If we are to achieve anything approaching the 10 per cent. target by primarily using onshore wind farms, which is the most likely situation, we will need between 6,000 and 7,000 2-MW turbines. We currently have about 1,000 onshore turbines, so we would need about six times as many. That would mean that few parts of our green and pleasant land would be far from a wind farm, which is exactly what worries many of my hon. Friends, such as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter). It would be awful if large parts of Hardy country were covered by what most dispassionate observers would describe as pretty ugly installations. Almost no one likes wind farms, although their initial impact is such that some people like them to begin with. A passage from "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells describes the Martian invaders as
	"Monstrous tripods . . . striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering steel, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of thunder".
	Those words of 100 years ago describe the average wind farm today equally well.
	I must admit that wind farms have a certain majesty. I spend my holidays at Delabole in north Cornwall, but while it is amusing for a week or two, I would not want to live there. Many of the people who have spoken, particularly Opposition Members but also the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), who made a memorable contribution, have made precisely that point. Many people pay lip service to wind farms, but do we want them next door to us? Precious few people would say yes.
	Wind farms may have consequences for human health—I admit that, as yet, those are ill-researched—with worrying reports of increased headaches in their vicinity, particularly in Cornwall. There are also clear risks for wildlife, especially migratory birds and bats. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, for example, has objected to a total of 52 wind farm applications, even though it is in favour of wind farms, including the ridiculous application to build 26 turbines on Romney marsh, to which various hon. Friends have referred.
	No matter how enthusiastic one might be for renewable energy, no one can deny that there are significant environmental downsides to wind farms. No one who has spoken on either side of the debate today could deny that a large environmental price is attached to having wind farms anywhere near us. It would be an environmental catastrophe for our green and pleasant land were we to seek to achieve an unduly large amount of our renewables obligation from onshore wind.
	There is not only a big downside but a relatively small upside. Sometimes, the enthusiasts in this debate make it sound as if wind power is a fantastic solution, and that it will be the answer to climate change. Of course, it is important that our motion mentions climate change, which was obviously not noticed by our friends the Liberal Democrats, who claimed that it did not. It is all about climate change, and sometimes people who are enthusiastic on the subject make it sound as if wind is the be-all and end-all of their energy and renewables policy, but the truth of the matter is that wind farms, whether onshore or offshore, simply do not add up. They are effective only 27 to 28 per cent. of the year, sometimes there is too little wind, and occasionally there is too much, and they must be switched off as a result. They require lines of pylons, often to remote and beautiful areas, to connect them to the grid. As the Government's record so far demonstrates, they go nowhere at all towards providing the renewables obligation.
	By contrast, Her Majesty's Opposition strongly support the obligation but believe that it can be achieved only by a basket of renewable sources: solar, wave and tidal, hydro, offshore wind, as well as biofuels and biomass—very important but not even mentioned in the Minister's speech. The Labour party has put all its renewables in one basket—onshore wind farms—and will fail to achieve its targets and the hopeless aspiration in the White Paper of 20 per cent. as a result.
	The Opposition of course are by no means opposed to onshore wind farms, and the hon. and learned Member for Redcar gave a good example of how they would fit in extremely well in her constituency. We are by no means opposed overall to onshore wind farms in their correct place. When I raised the matter with the Minister during his speech, he claimed that all the polls demonstrate that people are strongly in favour of onshore wind farms—

Patrick Cormack: Will my hon. Friend give way?

James Gray: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have only a minute to go.
	If the Minister is correct in saying that 70 or 80 per cent. of people across England are in favour of wind farms, he need not fear local opinion, but the fact that he has had to reissue planning policy statement 22 shows plainly that he does. We believe that the new PPS22 slants the planning presumption against local people and in favour of national decision making, and in favour of the developer, to which we are wholly opposed. We would take an early opportunity to redraft PPS22 to give the local people the ability to decide on whether they want a local—

Patrick Cormack: Will my hon. Friend give way?

James Gray: I am afraid that I cannot.
	That would give local people the ability to decide whether they want a wind farm. There should be no presumption that that decision will be overturned on appeal, and no presumption in favour of wind energy. There should be a presumption in favour of local decisions. Were that to mean an end to the massive expansion of what I believe to be absolutely hideous wind farms—[Interruption.] I am not ashamed to say that they are hideous. I challenge any hon. Member here to say he loves them. Of course they are hideous, but the question is whether we want them.
	If that presumption means an end to the massive expansion of these hideous wind farms, to be replaced by other forms of renewable energy, so be it. If we seek to save the global environment by achieving our 10 per cent. renewables target through onshore wind farms alone, it is our belief that the damage to our rural environment will be greater than any advantage we gain from it. Most green initiatives involve some kind of balance. It is our view that the Government have allowed the renewables balance to tip too far in favour of onshore wind farms, and I commend the motion to the House.

Elliot Morley: I am not altogether clear where the Conservatives are coming from on this issue. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) says that wind farms have their role in relation to renewable energy, and indeed they do, and then the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) talks basically about hideous killer alien wind farms from outer space, which does not strike me as a balanced view of the role of wind farms. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire quoted fiction. I always thought his speeches were complete fiction. I think that he proved it tonight. I will come back to some of those points in a moment, but I want to deal with some of the other points that were made. We heard a range of reasonable speeches. Hon. Members have made some fair points.
	The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) pointed out that, sadly, opportunism underpins the motion. This was an opportunity for a sensible debate on some serious issues. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), who is knowledgeable on energy from his time in opposition, talked about the range of issues in relation to wind farms. He talked about the impact on property prices, but according to work by bodies such as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the impact is more perception than reality. RICS did not find any impact on property prices where wind farms have been erected.
	The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) made an extremely good speech, which was well balanced; he said that it was agnostic. He talked about the number of turbines that may be needed. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire mentioned the figure of 6,000. It depends on the balance between onshore and offshore. Wind turbines generally are getting larger and more efficient, particularly the offshore ones, so it is wrong to cite such figures.
	The hon. Member for East Surrey talked about how to encourage renewables through the use of fiscal incentives. I agree that there is a range of fiscal incentives. I do not agree that they have been minor. The introduction of the renewables obligation certificates was a major change. The renewables obligation and the climate change levy have had a major impact in boosting renewables. Nevertheless, I do not dispute that more can be done. We should consider that as part of the debate about how to get the balance of energy right.
	The hon. Gentleman also talked about the future of micro-power. Again, there is a considerable future for micro-power in this country. I believe that we will see more development of micro-power. We certainly want to encourage it as a Government.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) put PPS22 in the proper context. It is about getting the right balance between a national strategy and taking into account people's legitimate concerns. That is important, but the most important point that he made is that, if we are serious about renewables, wind is the most established and is cheap compared with some of the other renewables that are still being developed and coming on stream. They will have their place, but if we are serious we need to make a start. He put the nuclear question in its proper context, too.
	The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) clearly outlined the risks that we face in terms of climate change and made a good case on that. He said that he supported offshore wind. We need both: offshore and onshore wind. Again, there is a balance to be struck. He talked about repealing PPS22. That is linked to the promise that the Conservatives are apparently giving—that local people will have a veto on applications for wind turbines. If that were the case, it would kill investment in renewables dead, because companies would not put the investment in.

Roger Williams: The Minister will be aware of concerns in Wales that applications for more than 50 MW are still determined by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. When I last asked the former Minister for Industry and Energy about this, he said that he would welcome proposals for further devolution on this matter. Have Ministers had any further thoughts?

Elliot Morley: The Welsh Assembly has played quite a role in determining decisions on wind power, but I understand that the actions of the Conservative group in the Assembly have been very opportunistic, in that it has opposed wind farms that have been granted permission. We have seen something similar tonight.

Brian Wilson: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Elliot Morley: Briefly, because I know that my right hon. Friend has long experience of this issue.

Brian Wilson: I agree with my hon. Friend that nobody should have the right to veto projects, but will he include the regulator in that? The problem is that the regulator has effective power of veto over huge swathes of the country where renewable resources are greatest. Does he agree that the regulator cannot have such a primacy of role that could overrule and pre-empt anything that planning authorities might want to do?

Elliot Morley: Indeed: there is a balance to be struck, and the regulator has a proper role in that, but local people's concerns should not be ignored and should be taken into account. There are issues relating to siting, and it is right and proper to consider them. That point was touched upon by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) who made a strong argument in relation to the offshore development in round 1 and made it clear that she supported the round 2 development. She also gave strong support to the industry, job and regeneration potential of new technologies and energy. I fully support her in that. I am very pleased to hear about the development that is taking place in the north-east.
	The speech of the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) was simply an anti-wind farm rant. There was no attempt at all to take into account the fact that there is an appropriate role in terms of siting. I met wind farm campaigners on the Isle of Axholme in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Mr. Cawsey). At that meeting, local people and the campaign group said that they were not against wind farms per se or against provision for a number of them, but they objected to any idea that, because they were willing to be reasonable and accept a percentage of wind farms, people in other areas would do nothing to consider cases on their merits. I fear that the hon. Member for North Dorset confirmed their concerns.
	I know that there are issues relating to the impact on the landscape and the environment. I went to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) and talked to campaigners and people who had perfectly reasonable concerns about the siting of wind farms. I believe that their fears can be allayed, and we have already heard examples in the debate of applications being opposed and then turned down. That demonstrates that the system works and that, when a good case is made, it is listened to and taken into account.
	We heard from the hon. Member for North Wiltshire about the Conservative party's proud 30-year record on the environment. In those 30 years, it managed to generate 0.7 per cent. in renewable energy, and that does not strike me as a proud record. This Government are spending more than £500 million between 2002 and 2008 on areas other than onshore and offshore wind.
	The very premise behind the motion, that the Government are relying exclusively on onshore wind power, is totally untrue. The Government support a range of renewables, and that includes £117 million for offshore wind, more than £60 million for energy crops and biomass, £31 million for photovoltaics, £12.5 million for community schemes, including micro-power, and the setting up of a £50 million marine renewables development fund—

Patrick McLoughlin: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
	The House divided: Ayes 183, Noes 298.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
	—
	The House divided: Ayes 325, Noes 140.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Main Question, as amended, being put;
	Resolved,
	That this House recognises the passing of the Energy Act 2004 and the positive actions taken by the Government to increase the amount of energy supplied from renewable sources; welcomes the global leadership shown by the Government on climate change and commends actions taken to meet the UK's Kyoto targets; condemns the Official Opposition for opposing the development of renewables while claiming to support them in principle; notes the abject failure of the Official Opposition to provide coherent policy proposals to meet the climate change challenge and its continued opposition to the Climate Change Levy; praises the Government for providing significant resources and support to the development of wind energy, including £117 million for the development of offshore wind energy; further notes that a growing proportion of wind farm developments will occur offshore; supports steps taken by the Government to promote energy efficiency and notes with approval that the planning regime allows for wind farm proposals to be thoroughly considered in terms of their impacts on local communities and environments and their contributions to national energy needs and policies; commends the Government's commitment to diversifying the sources of the UK's energy supply and the related investment in a wide range of renewable technologies including energy crops, £60 million investment for biomass, £31 million towards photovoltaics and £50 million for wave and tidal; and further condemns the Official Opposition's energy policy that would drastically reduce the UK's investment in renewable technologies.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Local Government, England and Wales

That the draft Local Authorities (Indemnities for Members and Officers) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 21st July, be approved.

Value Added Tax

That the Value Added Tax (Disclosure of Avoidance Schemes) (Designations) Order 2004 (S.I., 2004, No. 1933), dated 22nd July 2004, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd July, be approved.
	That the Value Added Tax (Groups: eligibility) Order 2004 (S.I., 2004, No. 1931), dated 22nd July 2004, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd July, be approved.

Northern Ireland

That the draft Financial Assistance for Young Farmers (Northern Ireland) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 15th September, be approved.

Constitutional Law

That the draft Primary Medical Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2004 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 14th September, be approved.

Damages

That the draft Damages (Variation of Periodical Payments) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 16th September, be approved.—[Gillian Merron.]
	Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9)(European Standing Committees),

Integration Of Financial Markets

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 4156/04 and Addendum 1, Financial Services Committee Report on Financial Integration; and supports the United Kingdom's five priorities for the future approach to financial services in the European Union.—[Gillian Merron.]
	Question agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
	That, at the sitting on Tuesday 26th October, the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the name of Mr Peter Hain relating to Programming of Bills, Procedures for Debates, etc., Carry-over of Bills, Deferred Divisions, Short Speeches and Removal of References to Strangers not later than Six o'clock; such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; the Questions may be put after the moment of interruption and the Orders of the House of 28th June 2001 and 6th November 2003 relating to Deferred Divisions shall not apply.—[Gillian Merron.]

PETITION
	 — 
	Incinerators

George Osborne: I am very pleased to present this petition against the proposed incinerator near Lostock Gralam, organised by the excellent local councillor, Stuart Russell, and signed by many hundreds of people in Lostock Gralam, Wincham, Northwich and Knutsford.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of the residents of Wincham and Lostock Gralam, Cheshire, and the surrounding area,
	Declares that they oppose the proposals for an incinerator to be built on Griffiths Road between Lostock Gralam and Rudheath, which would have a seriously detrimental impact on the local area and local residents,
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the government to support the campaign to oppose the proposals for an incinerator to be built by doing all in its power to persuade Cheshire County Council to reject these proposals.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

DEVON NHS PARTNERSHIP TRUST

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Gillian Merron.]

Angela Browning: I raise tonight the situation with the Devon partnership trust, a mental health trust that covers not only my constituency, but the greater part of Devon. I know that hon. Members from all parties are in their places for this debate because of our collective concern about what has happened in that trust. I do not exaggerate when I tell the Minister that the trust is in crisis, and I want particular action to help to sort the problem out. In particular, it is essential that outside expertise is brought in, even if for only a short period, to address the trust's specific problems.
	We need to cover the management change caused by the sudden resignations of the chief executive and her deputy. As we know from recent reports, the whole trust has experienced a management style and capability that left a lot to be desired. Services need to be improved to bring the trust up to the standards of the national average. That is a matter of urgency. Staff morale is low. There is a culture of bullying of staff and inadequate procedures exist to deal with dispute resolution. Unless somebody is appointed with the expertise to change rapidly the feelings and morale of staff throughout the trust, any further development of delivery of services will be severely hindered. That is at the top of the list.
	All levels of service in the trust are in crisis—acute, in-patient, primary care and community—and I shall give just a few examples of case studies that I have received in recent months that give me grave cause for concern. The trust has embarked on proposals to what it calls "modernise and reconfigure" its services, against the backdrop of a £3 million overspend to be repaid over two years. Changes will be implemented not necessarily because they are the right changes, but to deal with a budgetary problem. As I understand it, the trust was started up with a deficit, the backdrop for which must be obvious to everyone.
	I am aware of the strategic health authority's role and its responsibilities for trusts, such as the Devon partnership trust. I received a letter only this morning from the SHA, which tells me:
	"The performance of the DPT has generally been good. The organisation managed to attain financial balance last year and also hit all of its key targets."
	I have to tell the Minister that that statement is risible, in the light of my experience and that of other hon. Members in respect of the delivery of care to patients and support for the professionals who work in the service. The SHA goes on to say that it
	"has been working with the Trust on matters concerning the Trust's Service Improvement and Financial Recovery Plan"
	and
	"finding possible avenues to deliver financial balance within the current year."
	It is jolly good that the trust will meet all those financial targets. We understand that it has to work within a framework, but while it is receiving plaudits from the SHA for doing all that, GPs—I use the plural—are coming to my surgery to ask what I can do to help them to deliver a service to their patients that they feel is almost non-existent in many cases. That is unique in my 13 years as an MP. Although I have received letters from GPs and they have raised other issues with me, I have never known them come to my surgery in real despair because they feel that a prescription pad is all that they have left.

Richard Younger-Ross: Does the hon. Lady agree that the trust, the SHA and the other partners must be investigated to ascertain what has gone wrong not only with the trust but with the overseeing of it?

Angela Browning: I do not disagree with that proposal at all, but I also emphasise to the Minister that I do not want delays while investigations take place. We want action. If a school failed, someone would send in a team to deal with the immediate problems. We are talking about people's lives, and those problems need to be sorted out.
	The Royal College of Nursing locally has regularly written to Members of Parliament for some months. Not only has it expressed concerns about staff morale, but it has written:
	"The Trust management appears to believe that the financial overspend has been contributed to significantly by an inherited overspend . . . and underinvestment by the PCTs.
	In the Trust document—
	the financial recovery plan—
	"the management is unequivocal: 'in the face of competing national and local priorities, many PCTs have not invested in the Trust to the level required to meet the full cost of inflation and cost pressures".
	That is perhaps one of the things to which the hon. Gentleman was alluding.
	The RCN continues:
	"One might ask why the Strategic Health Authority allowed this situation to develop. One might think that the body which is responsible for the strategic planning for the health services . . . would monitor the functioning of a newly created Trust".
	I mentioned that GPs have been to my surgery. I have but a very small selection with me of the quotes that doctors throughout not only my constituency but other parts of Devon have sent to me in advance of the debate tonight. One says:
	"For nearly two years we have not been able to make a referral to the local community mental health team unless the patient is at serious risk of suicide. Although there is a psychological therapy service for primary care we have an allocation of 13 referrals a year for a population of 8250."
	Another writes:
	"We feel that there is a serious gap in the provision of mental health services for patients with mild to moderate depression or anxiety."
	I shall come in a moment to the way in which the trust has made allocations for what it calls core and non-core patients. Another doctor says:
	"GPs had been expressing doubts and worries about the management of the Trust for a considerable time before the managers were obliged to admit they couldn't do it".
	A GP in my constituency says:
	"I am writing after much thought to express my concerns over the management of psychiatric services for the elderly in Tiverton."
	There have been five different locum psychiatrists in two years, and as the doctor writes:
	"Clearly this has made continuity of care a joke".
	Another says:
	"To reduce the bed capacity of a severely overstretched service seems crazy. I have lost confidence in the management of Devon Partnership Trust."
	Another says:
	"I am a working GP in Mid-Devon served by this trust. The service provided is very poor, the worst I have come across in 30 years of NHS work."
	Another says that she carried out a small audit of repetitive suicidal behaviour, and states:
	"The small study I conducted showed that 50 per cent. of patients were taking overdoses within three months of an initial self-harm attempt."
	The reason for those doctors' concerns is that the trust has set up core and non-core services. A week ago, in answer to my written question the Minister said that those decisions were to be made locally, but I urge him to look at what is happening in this trust.

Hugo Swire: On core and non-core issues, does my hon. Friend share my concern about the fact that beds put aside for those suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, particularly those in our community or cottage hospitals, will not be staffed by specialist mental health nurses and may then be lost?

Angela Browning: My hon. Friend is right. That is one of the trust's proposals, and it is something that we are all concerned about. If people with Alzheimer's who are going into hospital for respite care are not treated by a qualified mental health nurse, the hospital will not be able to sustain its treatment of such patients, and the beds will revert to general ones.
	The question of core and non-core services is a real problem because it means that there is virtually nothing for patients classified as non-core. When I say "virtually nothing", I am not exaggerating, and that is why GPs are coming to see me. They are not allowed to refer non-core cases to a consultant; they go to the community mental health team, who are there to assess patients and then decide on the level of care to be given and on whether further referrals are needed. At the moment, among the patients who have been to see me are people who have waited 12 weeks for a first appointment and some who are still waiting. We are talking about potential suicides here.
	Only this weekend, I visited at home a young woman who has made no fewer than 10 suicide attempts since she was 15. I witnessed for myself the self-harm marks on her wrists. She has been turned down by the community mental health team as somebody for whom they are not prepared to provide support. [Hon. Members: "Disgraceful."] Hon. Members are right; it is a disgrace. In fact, it is quite wicked.
	I mentioned in-patient care. The Cedars, part of Wonford House hospital, is a unit that takes patients from my constituency. In June 2002, we saw the most tragic event in which three patients, not all of whom were voluntary patients considered to be a low risk, left the unit together and collectively committed suicide by jumping from a cliff. As a result, the trust was meant to put in place at The Cedars certain safeguards to ensure patient safety.
	Since then, there have been further deaths among people who have left the unit. I mention in particular Daniel Heard, a constituent of mine who died last February. In July this year, after my many discussions with the then chief executive, she wrote, promising an external review of the circumstances surrounding Daniel's death. I spoke to his mother last week; neither she nor I has yet heard of any such review or inquiry being set up. That is symptomatic of the laissez-faire attitude towards situations in which people's lives have been at stake, yet the style and efficiency of the management throughout the trust, whether in dealing with an in-patient or with somebody who presents at a GP's surgery, show just how poor the services are.
	I conclude by reading from the brochure of a GP practice in neighbouring Dorset that offers in-house counselling for adults, as well as a dedicated psychology service for children, families and teenagers. The brochure states:
	"If your mental health needs cannot be met by our in-house service, we have access to the community based mental health team, a specialist psychotherapist and services for alcohol and drug addiction problems."
	GPs in my constituency cannot refer heroin addicts aged under 18 to anybody—I tabled a written question about that last week. Across the piece, the service has disintegrated. I ask the Minister—I beg the Minister—do not just tell me tonight that the strategic health authority and others are trying to put things right. A lot more than that is needed to deal with the immediate problem that we face in Devon.

Stephen Ladyman: I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) on obtaining this debate and on her interest in local health services, both generally and in this important respect. She knows the difficulties that Ministers have when responding to debates such as this one. We do not have complete access to every single fact and figure needed to give a thorough and comprehensive response from the Dispatch Box, and I am sure that she does not expect me to give one tonight. Therefore let me begin by saying that, whatever else I say tonight, I shall ensure that all her comments are properly studied; I shall reflect on them and, if necessary, write to her after the debate about any other types of action that I consider appropriate. That applies also to the comments made by the hon. Members for East Devon (Mr. Swire) and for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross). My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) has been raising the same issues: he has already met ministerial colleagues and is to meet the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), in the very near future. Clearly, all local MPs are very concerned.
	Mental health services in every area of England are going through a radical programme of modernisation. Local delivery plans for the modernisation programme have now been agreed, and I assure the hon. Lady that in every area of the country, including her own, there is a clear commitment to deliver all the mental health targets in the NHS plan. Progress towards those targets is already being made: for example, a range of specialised teams and services to support people with mental illness are being established across the country and their impact is now starting to be felt by service users and carers: they are able to exercise more choice, to be treated at home instead of hospital when that is appropriate, and to access services more easily in an emergency. I am sorry that the hon. Lady feels that that sort of progress is not being made in her constituency. Clearly, we need to investigate that.
	We are also making progress with strengthening the mental health work force. The number of consultants in the psychiatry group has increased by more than a third since 1997 and we have a comprehensive programme in place to ensure further development. In addition, we now have a quarter more psychiatric nurses working in the community and half as many more psychologists as there were in 1997. To support the focus on improving and modernising mental health services, significant extra national investment has been made—more than £300 million over the three years to the present. Between 2003–04 and 2005–06, Mid Devon primary care trust will receive an increase in its revenue allocation of £22.2 million, which represents a cash increase of just under 30 per cent.
	I am pleased to say that—at least on the face of it, although she may not agree—progress has extended to the hon. Lady's constituency. The north and mid Devon assertive outreach team has been developed, as have crisis resolution teams in north and mid Devon that are open seven days a week, and an early intervention team, which was informed by a successful pilot project set up in north Devon. In addition, I understand that the trust wishes to develop a new mental health facility in her constituency in Tiverton, so that people who suffer a mental health problem in that area do not have to travel to Exeter for the care and help they need.
	Notwithstanding the challenges faced by the local trust, which the hon. Lady outlined in her speech, I hope that she agrees that there have been a number of positive developments at both national and local level. I hope that she also agrees that the local trust has achieved well in the past. It has achieved two stars in the performance ratings for the past two years and it has returned a balanced financial position since its formation in 2001. That is a significant achievement, particularly given that four separate organisations were merged to create the trust. I think that we should pay tribute to all the staff who have contributed to those achievements.

Angela Browning: I am sorry about this—the Minister will not be surprised to hear this—but the experience of Devon Members is not what the hon. Gentleman is reading out from his brief. If the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) is seeing a senior Minister on this issue, I think I can speak for all Devon Members when I say that we would like to be at that meeting.

Stephen Ladyman: That is a matter for my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter and the Minister of State. Certainly my office door is always open to Members who want to discuss constituency issues of this seriousness.
	I agree with the hon. Lady that the trust is facing a challenging agenda. She has asked the Department to step in and manage the problems that the trust is currently facing.
	As the local headquarters of the NHS, strategic health authorities are responsible for performance managing local NHS organisations and for ensuring that local organisations are of a high quality and performing well. Strategic health authorities are the link between the Department of Health and the NHS, with the Department's role being to provide strategic leadership and direction. It would be inappropriate, therefore, for the Department to become directly involved in specific local issues or manage local problems. That is what we set up SHAs to do on our behalf, and I am assured that the SHA is working with the trust to ensure that it has the support that it needs.
	For example, the South West Peninsula SHA is working to strengthen the strategic direction of its mental health services. It is also supporting the trust in developing services, in line with the requirements of the national service framework, within a strong strategic framework. The SHA will also be providing close monitoring and advice on the trust's financial position, an issue to which I will return.
	In addition—perhaps this will give the hon. Lady a bit more of the reassurance that she seeks—I can say tonight that mental health policy officials and officials from the Department's recovery and support unit will also be meeting the SHA on 25 November to discuss the future direction and performance of local mental health services throughout its area. Therefore, I hope that the hon. Lady will accept that we are providing from the centre the support and direction that the SHA needs so that it in turn can support the trust in these difficult times.
	The recent departure of both the chief executive and the finance director have, of course, added to the challenges faced by the trust, and I am pleased that the South West Peninsula SHA has acted swiftly to put in place an acting chief executive. The acting chief executive of the trust has recruited an experienced NHS finance director to act as interim finance director until a permanent appointment can be made. He will take up his post at the beginning of November.
	The hon. Lady should be reassured that both the chair and chief executive of the SHA have also liaised closely with the chair of the Devon Partnership trust on the appointment of a high calibre replacement for the chief executive. I understand that an interim chief executive has already been identified and subject to due process will be appointed shortly.
	I am also aware of the real financial challenges ahead for the trust, but I am assured that it is putting in place a robust plan of action to address the problems that it is facing, and that the South West Peninsula SHA is providing the trust with the support to take this forward.

Adrian Sanders: I warn the Minister that cuts are being proposed at the Riverside unit in Torbay. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) mentioned the problems at the Cedars unit. Pre-dating that, there was a problem with the Edith Morgan unit in Torbay. The recommendations were essentially what was created, the Riverside unit, and it is that which is now to close. Organising and sorting matters out is a process that is being paid for by the most vulnerable in the community, and staff are extremely worried about the protections that they received as a result of some tragic cases that are now to be removed.

Stephen Ladyman: The hon. Gentleman is slightly misrepresenting the position in respect of the particular unit to which he is referring. The possibility of closing that unit is due not to financial pressures but the difficulty of recruiting staff, particularly agency staff, who are needed to maintain standards of clinical governance. I have been assured that if it is necessary to close the unit, it will be a temporary measure and the service would be reprovisioned in the local area. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman's comments are looked into to see whether I have been misinformed in any way.

Richard Younger-Ross: If the Minister wants to examine the crisis in morale, he has only to look at the 100 staff whose salaries are being cut by the trust from £7 an hour to £5 an hour.

Stephen Ladyman: I cannot comment on that matter without exploring it, but I shall certainly look into it.
	The trust has acted responsibly and is putting in place actions now to ensure that it reaches a year-end balance, which is a point to which the hon. Lady referred. It has developed a service improvement and financial recovery plan to identify how it can address the current financial problems and is engaged in ongoing discussions about the plan with its commissioning primary care trusts and other stakeholders. The strategic health authority is working with both the trust and the primary care trusts to ensure the successful resolution of those discussions.
	I appreciate that the plan's contents have caused some concern among local people, but its aim is to examine how the trust can make best use of its available resources and modernise services in order to deliver the national service framework for mental health. The Department has made it clear that where financial recovery plans are developed, they should not be at the expense of proper service provision. I am assured that the trust is making every effort to ensure that the impact on patient care is kept to a minimum, but we must examine that point in the light of hon. Members' comments.
	The hon. Lady also highlighted concerns about bullying in the workplace. The Government have made it clear that no form of bullying or harassment will be tolerated in the NHS. Staff should be fairly treated, properly rewarded and able to use their skills to the full. In the course of its recent clinical governance review, the Healthcare Commission received reports of harassment and bullying from members of staff. The final report, published in September, recommended that an independent review be carried out into these allegations.
	The Devon partnership trust has fully accepted the Commission's recommendation and a review is being established. The SHA is currently working in collaboration with the Healthcare Commission and the trust on the terms of reference for the review and on the appointment of personnel to undertake it. The review is expected to commence in January 2005, and I am assured that it will be robust, thorough and transparent.
	I also appreciate the serious concerns about the numbers of suicides at the Cedars unit and agree that there are important lessons to be learned. I want to reassure the House that I have looked carefully at the steps taken by the trust and the SHA to investigate the events that took place at the Cedars unit. I understand that a full internal review, an external review and an inquest into the triple suicide in 2002 have taken place, and the trust has fully taken on board the recommendations from those inquiries.
	The trust has acted on the findings of the reviews and has introduced changes to its key policies as well as improvements to the day-to-day running of the unit. For example, environmental changes have been made such as placing observation windows in all bedrooms, relocating the nursing station and replacing CCTV cameras. Policy changes have also been made, and 63 new policies have been put in place. Those policies include a revised engagement and supportive observation policy, a clinical risk policy, an incident reporting policy, a policy on alcohol and substance misuse and an absent without leave policy.
	Improvements have been made to staffing levels. Minimum staffing levels have been implemented, and those are increased to meet the clinical needs of patients. The trust has been working with Mid Devon primary care trust to increase the medical establishment by two additional consultant posts over the next two years. Improvements have been made to clinical record keeping. For example, detailed care plans that include leave arrangements are now used as a basis of communications at handover and with families and carers. New management and leadership arrangements are in place, and a senior H-grade nurse was appointed in September 2003 and leads the unit. The team is managed through the north and mid locality team and the senior nurse acts as a co-ordinator for the team, attending ward rounds and handovers.
	Before I conclude, I shall deal briefly with waiting and referral times. I understand that the Devon partnership trust operates a single point of entry system to mental health services. Under that system, GPs can still refer patients directly to a consultant, but the referral is handled in conjunction within the multi-disciplinary team, which means that all cases are handled in the same way. Urgent referrals are always looked at the same day, and less urgent cases are discussed and reviewed at weekly referral meetings.
	The community mental health teams in the hon. Lady's constituency have been working over the past 12 months to reduce waiting times by offering service users the opportunity to arrange first and follow-up appointments at times to suit them, which has had a significant impact on waiting times. If the hon. Lady and the GPs whom she mentioned believe that that is not an accurate representation of the situation, I would very much appreciate it if she wrote to me with their views, and if she made the Healthcare Commission, which has a role in inspecting these services, similarly aware.
	I am sure that I will not have reassured the hon. Lady completely, but I hope that she is at least partly reassured by the fact that there are to be further meetings with the strategic health authority and that we are going to give it support.
	Through "Shifting the Balance of Power" and devolving funding to the front line, we gave health services in every local area the freedom and resources to develop a strategy for the future that will deliver financial balance and sustainable services. However, when things go wrong there is always a call for us to step in from the centre and take over. That is not the way in which it should work if we are to give people the freedom they need. Mechanisms are in place for us to provide support to the strategic health authority and, through that, to trusts themselves. Other mechanisms enable us, with the help of the Healthcare Commission, to inspect services and ensure that we are picking up on these issues.
	I encourage the hon. Lady and other hon. Members in the Chamber to ensure that they are feeding all this information into the SHA and the Healthcare Commission. I will refer the impressions that I have gained from the debate to the SHA and engage with it to see whether we can come together to find a way of supporting the very important mental health services that Members highlighted. We can make progress on this—

Hugo Swire: Will the Minister give way?

Stephen Ladyman: Very briefly, as we have only a couple of seconds.

Hugo Swire: It is all very well devolving these matters to local authorities and health services, but there is a crisis in Devon, as is shown by the cross-party representation in this debate. We want intervention and action, not more delegation and discussion.

Stephen Ladyman: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does want intervention, but—
	The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned at three minutes to Eleven o'clock.